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THREE ERAS OE NEW ENGLAND 



OTHER ADDRESSES, 



PAPERS CRITICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL. 



GEORGE LUNT. 







BOSTON: 



TICKNOE AND FIELDS 

MDCCCLVn. 



.Las 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by 

GEORGE LTJNT, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



BOSTON. 
, DUTTON AND SON, PRINTERS, 

37 Congress Street. 



PREFACE. 



The first three articles in this volume, together 
with that on a disputed passage of Shakespeare, never 
have been printed before. That which stands earliest 
in the order of arrangement was pronounced at the 
request of the New England Society of New York, in 
December, 1856. The author has thought it proper to 
retain, for this performance, the title under which it 
was written and spoken, although it will be seen, that 
a suitable reason induced him to modify somewhat 
his original plan. The second production was deliv- 
ered a year ago, and also more recently on several 
occasions, as a Lyceum Lecture ; and the third was 
given, also as a Lecture, before various similar asso- 
ciations, about ten years since. The Address, at the 
dedication of Horticultural Hall, originally published 
by the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, has been 
subjected to some slight changes, chiefly of expression, 
for the purposes of the present publication. The 
brief eulogy on General Taylor was offered to the 
Circuit Court of the United States for the First Cir- 
cuit, at the opening of its session, July 15, 1850, 
while the author held the office of Attorney of the 
1* 



VI PREFACE. 

United States for the District of Massachusetts. The 
use already made of the other writings in the volume 
is sufficiently indicated in the introduction of each 
piece. Of the Lectures, it is proper to say, that 
portions, and, in some instances, very considerable 
portions, were omitted in the delivery. 



CONTENTS, 



THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 9 

USES AND ABUSES OF THE DAILY PRESS, 67 

MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS, Ill 

DEDICATION OF HORTICULTURAL HALL ; 177 

PRESIDENT TAYLOR, 207 

FISHER AMES, ~~. 215 

CHARLES JACKSON, 233 

LECTURE BY RUFUS CHOATE, 249 

A SHAKESPEARIAN RESEARCH 258 



THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND: 
A LECTURE, 

DELIVERED BEFORE THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY OF 
NEW YORK, DECEMBER 3, 1856. 



The beginnings of a nation are necessarily small. 
I speak not more of its numbers, than of its condition 
and habits. Nature, at the commencement of all 
colonial existence, take ^ the place of art, and the 
wants of nature are few and simple. It is surprising 
how summarily a removal from that state of society, 
which may be styled the common round of civilized 
being, strips us of our acquired tastes, and of the 
customary usages of our lives, and even of many of 
our most ordinary necessities. Conformity with the 
mere absolute requirements of life becomes then the 
result of that law, which is emphatically the essence 
of reason. The object, for which we then erect the 
rude and shapeless hut, is, that we may be shielded 
from the unfriendly elements. And, then, the un- 
hewn timber, or unchiselled stone serve the same 
purpose, in our behalf, as base and pediment, facade, 



10 THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 

colonnade, architrave and frieze, contrived by the 
inward-looking eye of genius and wrought out by the 
most curious manipulations of art. Our primary 
necessities, of — 

food, clothes and fire, 

we shall then reckon to be all honestly supplied, 
though the meat be not presented upon the burnished 
service, which illuminates the banquet, nor the gar- 
ments glitter with the lustre of invaluable jewels, nor 
the genial warmth be tempered, equalized, and con- 
trolled by the application of any artificial aid. 

Whenever this is the state of man, the impertinent 
fictions and weak sophisms of life die out. The bor- 
rowings and lendings of the human creature fall 
away from him, under the rigid discipline of primeval 
necessities, as the encrusting dirt, which bedimmed 
the diamond, is removed by the hard process, which 
reveals and confirms its inestimable price. The voice 
of the mountain winds would mock at the most indis- 
pensable and best-recognized trappings of polished 
society, as they rent them away, and fastened them 
fluttering in the crevice of the cliff, or, bore them 
onwards to the unknown wilderness, and would hail 
its very comforts with the shout and laughter of deris- 
ion. And what more piteous spectacle could be 
exhibited, than the favorite of the most courtly circle, 
arrayed for triumphant conquest, sitting solitary and 
helpless in the desert, where life itself is only granted 




THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 11 

to the hands and eyes and nerves, which know how 
to reduce its rugged heart to a serviceable subjec- 
tion? 

So far, therefore, as our familiar and inherent char- 
acteristics, which form the very foundation of our 
nature, and make us good, or make us great, are liable 
to become diluted or perverted by the sophistications 
of social being, they may acquire an actual refresh- 
ment and renewal, under the severe and inevitable 
trials of colonial existence ; and thus, from the corrupt 
bosom of an outworn empire may spring that newer, 
and more wholesome flood of life, which shall invigo- 
rate a world. 

This, then, is the absolute law of all legitimate 
emigration, that it leaves behind it the weaknesses, 
the concretions and superfluities of artificial life, and 
founds its new existence upon an appeal to the pri- 
mordial elements of natural society. Pretence, which 
so constantly dazzles the unthinking multitude, can- 
not stand a moment in the presence of a reality, of 
which daily experience compels the application of its 
entire physical, intellectual and moral development. 
Even wealth itself, that universal criterion of every 
civilized community, becomes only adventitious, where 
true worth and sterling sense are requirements of 
indispensable utility. Respect clings only to those 
qualities, which are valuable, because they are abso- 
lutely useful, and he alone, who surpasses his fellows 



12 THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 

in wisdom, knowledge, and the substantial attributes 
of heroic virtue, stands forth a king of men. 

That most charming of all simple stories, of which 
boyhood never wearies, owes more than half its inter- 
est to the very principle I have suggested. This 
certainly does not result mainly from a consecutive 
relation of incidents, often trivial, and seldom claim- 
ing sympathy with what are commonly accounted our 
higher and more absorbing emotions. But it is, be- 
cause we are taught to respect and value a human 
being, positively despoiled of every external aid, and 
reduced at once to the independent exertion of his 
intelligent faculties and capacities, — who thus con- 
quers fear and weakness and the cruelty of fortune, 
and alone, amidst the utter solitudes of nature, be- 
comes, in a far higher than any figurative sense, the 
monarch of all he surveys. 

It is on this field, therefore, that the human charac- 
ter is not only tested, but developed and matured. 
For here, it is the inevitable tendency of life to revert 
to those fundamental principles, which we see only 
dimly through the mist and haze of artificial society. 
We are apt to believe, that the imagination of the 
poet alone must have invested the progenitors of a 
people with those attributes of greatness and heroism, 
which scarcely find any response amidst the hollow 
echoes of our own unreal hearts. We have been con- 
versant with the weaknesses, the compromises, the 



THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 13 

pusillanimities, and the manifold perversions of social 
existence ; we have looked upon its arrogant show, 
and have observed the success of those mere imitative 
propensities, which it accepts so readily as a substitute 
for sterling merit. We know how all these indications 
mark the outward progress, as they testify equally to 
the declining vital energies of a nation, — and we can 
scarcely conceive how there could have been behind 
us, in the far and twilight past, a passionate longing 
for the truth and an unshaken fortitude of soul, — a 
courage, a strength, a justice and a virtue, which 
were not then, if now, little more than irreducible 
abstractions, but as truly and necessarily the solid 
foundations of a rising state, as they are the adaman- 
tine pillars of universal and intelligent creation. 

There may be more semblance of truth, therefore, 
than we sometimes imagine, in the crude memorials 
of remote antiquity ; and the philosophic historian has 
wisely refrained from rejecting, as utterly fabulous, 
much which is commonly considered to denote only 
the age of fable. For uniform experience teaches, 
th&t some of our noblest qualities were exhibited un- 
der the severest pangs of penury and suffering, and 
often even those, which might seem half to warrant 
the traditional deification of demigods, whose uncer- 
tain characters loom up indistinctly through the 
shadows of distant centuries, or who still lower upon 
us, in imaged marble, from their crumbling pedestals. 
2 



14 THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 

And thus it may be, that the stern muse of early 
history intended only to characterize the idea of naked 
privation itself, in the exemplification of that savage 
nurse, around whose gaunt and shaggy bosom clung 
the infant arms of the founder of eternal Rome. 

And this general view of the subject is susceptible 
of more or less faithful application to the early period 
of every people, which has laid the foundation of a 
flourishing empire amongst the unconventional sim- 
plicities of colonial existence, — not surely by reason 
of any conformity with the characteristic sordidness of 
savage life, — but, because sovereign nature, then 
sitting supreme, requires the manifestation of solid 
virtues, and of qualities, manly or womanly, as they 
should be ; and demands and enforces a recurrence to 
those elementary and immortal principles, of universal 
obligation, which become refined away, or at least 
partially obscured, amidst the clashing relations, the 
gathering, varying and rapidly intermingling interests, 
and all the dust and struggle and fever of a progressive 
and sensuously practical and degenerately luxurious 
age. 

That rugged integrity of the mistress of the ancient 
world, when, in the flush of her unblemished youth, 
she sought the sweet Egerian grot, to take counsel of 
more than mortal wisdom, — or that fundamental moral 
lesson, without which nothing is, — so impressed upon 
the still earlier Persian — to speak the truth, — in the 



THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 15 

palace, or on the plain, or as he ascended the moun- 
tain tops to hold communion with the stars, — are no 
more characteristic indications of the training of a 
mighty nation, than those weary years of the wilder- 
ness and painful wanderings of the chosen people, 
before their eyes were permitted to behold — 

Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood, — 

which, by the irreversible covenant of ages, they and 
their children were yet to see 

Stand drest in living green. 

But, certainly, never before so manifested, and quite 
as certainly, never again to be illustrated, in the same 
manner and degree, is that eminent exemplification 
of these principles to be found, in the settlement and 
progress of our beloved New England, — of that New 
England, to which our hearts turn with a devotion, 
which seems to us, at least, to be neither due, nor 
claimed, nor recognized by any other country or 
clime, — of that New England, to which her children, 
scattered, as many of them are, at the remotest ex- 
tremities of the world, cling by peculiar ties and 
sacred associations and a closer kindred, — of her, 
whom we so love and venerate, as the common mother 
of us all — and so personify, under this familiar and 
endearing appellation, that, looking towards her from 
those places of exile, her hundreds of thousands of 
homes, scarcely divided from one another by any 



16 THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 

unfraternal wall of separation, seem all and each to 
be almost equally our own. 

For never again can there be such preparation and 
such a result. No unexplored continent is again to 
cheer the eye of the long-baffled and almost despond- 
ent mariner — now doubted, as if it must be only some 
delusive cloud, and now re-hailed with the joyful cry 
of " Land !" as it rises, low and distant, under the 
eyelids of the morning, along the dim horizon of the 
dreary main. Never again, by some yet unborn Co- 
lumbus, will a new world be given to the kingdom of 
Castile and Leon. Never again will human memo- 
rials be emblazoned with the enduring record of all 

their 

better fortitude 

Of patience and heroic martyrdom. 

Never will be relighted the gospel-kindling fires of 
Smithfield, — never be rewritten a like-affecting story 
of the unexampled exile of Leyden, — never such a 
history of that one perilous traverse of the unknown 
deep, — instead of the southern verdure which hope had 
fondly anticipated and portrayed, to picture the bare, 
blank aspect of that wild, inhospitable sandcape, — to 
tell of the half-timorous yet half-hostile greeting of the 
savage, of the biting and bitter welcome of winter, and 
all from which the heart shrinks, as the eye wanders 
over that simple narrative, of dangers where there was 
no fear, and sufferings where there was no despair. 



THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 17 

For my own part, I care little for the natural im- 
perfections of such men. It is superfluous to defend 
the founders of New England. A vain and thankless 
task is his, who attempts to underestimate their vir- 
tues, or to detract from the majestic proportions of 
the gray fathers of the people. Their personal faults 
passed with them into the grave, — their just princi- 
ples and noble actions survived and blossomed into a 
living harvest of sacred and immortal memory. Re- 
versing emphatically the sad doctrine of the sentiment 
uttered over the dead body of Caesar, — the good they 
did lives after them, while the evil, if evil there were, 
ended with their lives and is charitably interred with 
their bones. Their imperishable monument, not con- 
tracted to the too narrow dimensions of any mere 
material and precarious foundation, and exhibiting 
to the outward eye neither glittering shaft, nor airy 
pinnacle, is coextensive with the considerate judgment 
of mankind. More fortunate than the progenitors of 
any other race, there is neither obscurity nor uncer- 
tainty in the plain, clear and conscientious narration 
of their simple and pious annals ; and no lapse of 
time can obliterate the undisputed memorials of all 
they were and did and suffered. If nothing else had 
ever been written in their favor, there are two records, 
at least, which will last forever to their praise. When 
the first colony, which fled from the persecutions of 
home, on the eve of their departure for their future 



18 THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 

habitation in the wilderness, was now about to bid 
that final and most affecting farewell to those hospit- 
able arms which christian Holland had opened for 
their refuge, the magistrates of Ley den solemnly 
declared, that during their residence of twelve years, 
— which we well know were years of almost unparal- 
leled trials and privations, — " these English" had not 
troubled the city with a single suit, or any sort of 
controversy; and the greatest historian of England, 
regarding their religious opinions with disdain and 
their political tendencies with a strongly-defined and 
systematic hostility, yet pronounces — " So absolute 
was the authority of the crown, that the precious 
spark of liberty had been kindled by the Puritans 
alone ; and it was to this sect that the English owe 
the whole freedom of their constitution." To the 
peaceable, therefore, — peaceable, when no rights in- 
dispensable to peace itself were infringed, — and, thus 
minded, who assumed the sword, only that, by it, they 
might establish such tranquil rest as liberty alone 
allows, we owe that flame of freedom, which, but for 
them, had slumbered upon its embers throughout 
prostrate and oppressed Europe, — and another Chris- 
tendom, to be purer, as they hoped, and more intelli- 
gent, as it well might be wider and mightier than the 
old. 

From this point, therefore, we may fitly glance, for 
a single moment, over what may be justly entitled the 



THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 19 

Primitive Era of New England. Assuredly, in no 
legitimate sense, can this be accounted a restoration 
of the Saturnian reign. As men ordinarily estimate 
happiness, the pilgrims of Plymouth, especially, were 
deficient in everything, which enters into the vague 
and illusory computation of external good. There 
was an almost total absence of what reality furnished, 
or imagination supplies, to complete the alluring pic- 
ture of a golden age. Not only the softer delights of 
pastoral loveliness, but those grander developments, 
which at least dignify nature in some of the severest 
manifestations of her infinite moods, were equally 
wanting. No awful and cloud-crowned mountain, 
luminous with perpetual snows, glittered upon their 
enchanted vision, — no meadows spread before their 
eyes, enamelled with amaranthine flowers, — no rivers, 
clearer and purer than the bountiful bosom of mater- 
nal earth ordinarily vouchsafes, sparkled between 
emerald banks and over golden sands, — nor could 
they promise themselves to wander amidst consecrated 
groves, resonant with the intermingled harmonies of 
every airy melody and loaded with the lingering odors 
of a myriad fragrant beds of spontaneous bloom be- 
neath. But they saw before them the low swell of 
the yellow sand-heap, and the dreariness of winter 
settling down in browner shadows upon the more 
distant hills — instead of the lustrous gleam, that rolls 
with the undercurrent of the azure river, blending its 



20 THREE ERAS OP NEW ENGLAND. 

blue with gold, only the new-formed ice, that glittered 
upon the margin of every standing pool, — for meads 
embroidered with luxuriant flowers of every softest 
tint or deeper dye, nothing but the level of the deso- 
late marsh, stretching far away, crested only with its 
unsightly patches of ragged sedge, — and for the lul- 
ling music of Arcadian woods, no song but the sol- 
emn requiem of long-departed Summer, breathed by 
the rising winds, in no gentle tones, to the responsive 
sighings of the November pines. Scarcely to the peal 
of triumphal hymns, therefore, but surely with patient 
and undaunted hearts, they found and thus chose 
their home, in the midst of a dreary wilderness, which 
promised absolutely nothing to their present necessi- 
ties, but what the sad aspect of haggard want foretold, 
under the dispensation and infliction of real suffering. 
And yet, in the presence of such a scene, upon the 
deck of their frail vessel, at her moorings, before the 
first footstep had consecrated that 'Forefathers' Rock,' 
to be forever afterwards the very altar-stone amongst 
the memorials of that lonely harbor, — looking truth 
steadfastly in the face, and with a wiser forethought 
of the true condition of man than theirs, who imagine 
a primeval society of natural, unrestrained and there- 
fore impracticable human freedom, — they drafted and 
executed, as never was such instrument made before, 
— that brief and noble declaration of principles, look- 
ing to the future formation of a frame of civil govern- 



THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 21 

ment, which should be known to all succeeding times 
as the Constitution of the Mayflower. 

But though they thus settled upon the doctrine of 
a polity worthy of the sagest men of state, the star in 
the West, which they had seen, signified to them only 
security from religious persecution. No mere world- 
ling is competent to the just estimation of characters 
quite out of the scope of his vision, whether he be 
known under the title of philosopher or historian. 
They cannot be judged, according to the ordinary 
rules of worldly prudence, for the only prosperity 
they sought was the rest of their souls. As literally 
as Jacob in the house of Egypt and the presence of 
Pharaoh, they counted the days of their years but the 
progression of a pilgrimage, — few and evil in the 
computation of their sum, and each in succession but 
bringing them, on the foot-road of a toilsome journey, 

— a day's march nearer home. 

Actuated and governed, in a great degree by the 
same general motives and principles, yet one chief 
object of their compatriots of Massachusetts was un- 
doubtedly to build a state. And, as that chosen 
barque, which first settled down with her precious- 
freighted souls upon their Ararat of Plymouth, bore 
the charming name of the freshest flower, which peeps 
out of the chilly bosom of our New England spring, 
so the flag-ship of that little squadron, which first 



22 THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 

cast anchor beneath the shadow of those three lonely 
hills, looking down, to-day upon the commerce of a 
world, must be forever associated with one of the 
sweetest of her sex, a lovelier flower, — in the narrow 
judgment of earth only too early transplanted to the 
skies. I read the admirable letter of those adven- 
turous and high-toned men, to " the rest of their 
brethren in and of the church of England," from the 
cabin of the Arbella,* lying in Yarmouth roads, — and 
regarding that christian resolution couple'd with hu- 
mility and charity, and the self-sacrificing spirit of 
those " persons of worth and quality," as they were 
then styled, who came with Winthrop and Saltonstall 
and Johnson and Dudley and Vassall, and the rest, — 
who, on the eve of an enterprise, which, to have en- 
gaged the attention of such men, must have seemed 
to them great, were looking forward to a dwelling- 

* I so write the name of this vessel, rather than " Arabella," in 
deference to the critical judgment of Hon. James Savage, the learned 
editor of Winthrop's History of New England, and to the cotemporary 
evidence of its correctness, which he adduces in the first volume of 
that invaluable work. But there is still another reason for this, which 
some may think even more conclusive. Arbella, it seems, was the 
designation of a certain district or locality of Judea, eastward beyond 
Jordan, and considering the marked preference of the Puritans for 
"Scripture names, or such as had a bearing on Scripture, they would 
have been very likely to select this, for that reason ; especially, since 
the word, Arabella, might involve an idea, in some sense offensive to 
their peculiar notions. Besides, Arbella is, I presume, the original 
word, of which the other may have been formed, for the sake of eu- 
phony, or by corrupt usage, at some period, either earlier, or more 
probably later than their day. 



THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 23 

place in what they call their " poore cottages in the 
wildernesse," — and who, however exalted in mind 
and reproached for spiritual pride, declare that they 
" are not of those that dreame of perfection in this 
world," — and, methinks, in their case, there was, in 
combination with their religious hopes, the impulse of 
generous motives besides and a manifestation of great 
and noble characteristics, broader if not higher, than 
all which has been justly claimed for those pilgrims 
of Plymouth, whose first track, like a new star-beam 
over the waste of ocean, bridged it forever with inex- 
tinguishable light. And this Massachusetts, which 
thus they made their own, is truly the mother of New 
England ; for hers were all its colonies, either by the 
natural and direct relations of offspring and home, or 
else, in one particular instance, by the bestowal of her 
maternal adoption and by filial submission to her 
control. 

There are a great many false notions and . partial 
views prevalent, in regard to the character and condi- 
tion of these fathers of a new world. One would 
imagine, that any philosophical analysis of the motives 
and qualities, which must have laid at the foundation 
of such an enterprise, would have freed them from 
many misapprehensions and imputations, to which 
they are even now too often unjustly exposed. In 
regard to the social position of the main body of them, 
at home, in a mere worldly point of view, I am no 



24 THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 

more anxious than they were. But for their personal 
merits and accomplishments, for the elements of their 
private characters, — for those intellectual and moral 
traits, by which they were wiser and better than the 
founders of any other commonwealth, we may justly 
cherish the same elevated regard, which animates 
every grateful heart, in remembrance of its participa- 
tion in any high and great and permanent good. 
Upon any fair and just view of their purposes, I am 
not willing to consider those men fanatics, who sub- 
mitted to every personal privation for the sake of free- 
dom of conscience, and for this great end, voluntarily 
separated themselves, by an ocean rolling between, 
from all those, to whom their conduct could give 
offence. Nor will I call such persons bigots who, 
having encountered and endured all things, to secure 
a liberty, precious, peculiar, and as they deemed it 
without controversy essential to their own spiritual 
welfare, — would not permit it to be disturbed, per- 
verted, or wrested away, by self-willed intruders of 
whatever sect or degree, to whom the world of the 
wilderness was as open elsewhere, as it had been to 
themselves. The liberty of conscience which they 
sought, judging of it only for such spiritual needs as 
souls like theirs would crave, was liberty for their 
own conscience and not another man's. If they and 
their associates, who still remained behind, had been 
made of that stuff, which some men call liberal, be- 



THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 25 

cause, being lukewarm in itself, it is equally uncon- 
cerned about every mode of faith, — then, truly, the 
church would have been troubled with no worse heresy 
than vice, the authority of court and star-chamber had 
been kept as undisputed, as it was insufferable and 
despotic, — Archbishop Laud had never stretched forth 
his hand to stay the interrupted embarcation of that 
one company of nonconformists, above all others, to 
the thunder of whose squadrons all Europe so soon 
listened, as, beneath the hoofs of their horses, hierar- 
chy and crown were trampled into the ,dust, — no dis- 
ciplinary axe had turned its sharpened edge against 
that "gray discrowned head," — there would have been 
no approximation made to a settlement of the wise 
and just principles of religious liberty, and no impulse 
afforded to the spirit of civil freedom throughout the 
world. 

The English moral poet somewhat impertinently 
declares — 

Most women have no characters at all ! 

If he had pronounced a similar judgment upon a 
majority of the other sex, it would have been almost 
equally just. But those, of whom I have been speak- 
ing, had character, — individual, strongly-marked, pe- 
culiar, — resulting from reflection moulded in suffer- 
ing, and heightened, if it could not be perfected, by 
religious experience. I consider these men great, 
therefore, who were directly or indirectly concerned 
3 



26 THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 

in the most momentous revolution of opinions, which 
has affected, or is likely to affect modern history ; 
great in their simplicity, in their integrity, in their 
sacrifices and their struggles, and, above all, in that 
unimpeachable sincerity of character, which is the 
true secret of their greatness, as it is the earnest of 
every other virtue. Whatever might have been their 
particular grade in the social circle, the men, who were 
the instruments in such undertakings, were not of the 
ordinary stamp. Education they certainly had, in all 
that the schools of Europe then could teach, more or 
less generally diffused amongst them, and no true son 
of New England can fail to honor them, for the value 
which they so early and constantly manifested for its 
advantages and its transmission. Plain as they may 
seem to a superficial view, there was anything in 
their company but a deficiency of the graces of refine- 
ment and cultivation, and assuredly many of their 
leaders were distinguished by the profoundest learning 
of the times and the noblest intellectual endowments. 
Some of them, certainly, were persons of liberal for- 
tune and of public and private eminence, — others had 
left all their fortunes and every worldly expectation 
behind them. There were few or none of them either 
of that highest class, too much absorbed in mere fri- 
volities, or inextricably involved in affairs of state, or 
bound to the soil by hereditary ties and duties, inca- 
pable of release, — and they were far above that lowest 



THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 27 

order, which is generally beneath the operation of ex- 
alted impulses and noble motives. But the friends of 
Bradford and Brewster and Standish and Vane and 
Winthrop and others, who came, and of Brook, of 
Say and Sele, of Pelham, and Hampden and Pym 
and Haslerig and Cromwell, who were kept at home 
for the completion of other great cotemporaneous un- 
dertakings, measured by the standard of any just 
comparison, were anything but mean men. 

We shall find few historic names in their records. 
They were of Saxon, not of Norman origin. But 
they were in general of that sturdy, middle class, 
between the high and the low, — husbandmen or 
rural proprietors, without whose manly characteristics 
and substantial nerve and muscle, there could have 
been no historic names, nor any of that history which 
dignifies a nation. They had as good soldiers in 
their company as divines, and laymen of various pur- 
suits and occupations. They cannot be called men 
of peace, for that motto of Massachusetts, which Syd- 
ney originally inscribed at one of the passes of the 
Alps, shows that they understood the uses and -neces- 
sities of war ; and, indeed, their whole colonial exist- 
ence was little else than one long warfare, for a 
period of more than a hundred and fifty years. Men 
of their stamp and degree, such as subsequently 
furnished the soldiers that Cromwell trained to vic- 
tory, the countrymen and ancestors of the first set- 



28 THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 

tiers of New England, must have been found always, 
wherever the arms of England had acquired their old 
renown ; of that order which so often, in the language 
of a cotemporary historian, " had made all France 
afraid," — few in numbers, but invincible in courage 
— on the famous fields of hard-won battle, where 
their warrior-kings would have no more men to 
divide the honors of the day — 

When Valois braved young Edward's gentle hand, 
And Albert rushed on Henry's way-worn band, 
With Europe's chosen sons, in arms renowned, 
Yet not on Vere's bold archers long they looked, 
Nor Audley's squires, nor Mowbray's yeomen brooked, 
They saw their standard fall and left their monarch bound. 

I endeavor to imagine the condition of the colony, 
a few years after the first sharp pinch of their almost 
desperate necessities was past. They were still, as 
they long continued to be, only a garrison in the 
wilderness. Up to the period of 1640, it may be 
safely computed, that the entire population of New 
England, capable of bearing arms, did not vary much 
from the tale of five thousand souls. And history, 
surely, offers no parallel to the fact of such an adven- 
turous foothold, so marvellously gained and kept in 
the very face of a numerous savage people, whose 
tendencies, at least, were hostile, whose friendship 
was uncertain, whose treaties could only be reckoned 
each a hollow truce, whose very nature called for the 



THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 29 

domination of fear, who could scarcely have discerned 
the not very obvious advantages to themselves of yield- 
ing to the influence of conciliatory appeals, and who 
possessed the physical power to overwhelm their scat- 
tered handful of neighbors, to the human eye so appa- 
rently feeble, at any chosen moment. But the esti- 
mate, put upon them, by the early settlers of New 
England, seems to have been made up of a mingled 
sentiment of compassion for their heathenish igno- 
rance, contempt for their divided and broken strength, 
and a guarded dread of their treacherous and lurking 
instincts. But indeed these men were valiant, strong 
and of good courage. And taking into consideration 
their true condition, their insignificant numbers, their 
inadequate means of defence, and that long siege of 
unexampled perils, through many weary, painful, 
watchful years, I count them brave with a more than 
mortal valor. They were frugal, — for, descended of a 
nation very far from opulent, and in which the means 
and sources of its subsequent wealth had only just 
begun to be developed, — and of a class, amongst which 
necessity had long taught and systematized the prac- 
tice of a severe frugality, — upon them this rugged 
virtue imposed a still harder hand, — for, besides that 
sweat of the brow, which the primal curse, now almost 
converted into a blessing, entails, the very cultivation 
of their fields was often like the crimson harvest of 
arms. The seed of peace, which they had planted in 
3 # 



30 THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 

trembling hope, was gathered in like a forage ; and fre- 
quently they ate the scanty bread, thus wrung from an 
ungenial soil, sown, as it were, with armed men, at the 
imminent hazard of their lives. Wise they were, for 
clearly recognizing the spiritual elevation of mankind, 
as the only legitimate object of human discipline, they 
first sought the means for the advancement of what- 
ever is to remain to the intellectual and moral being, 
when human discipline is at an end, — and looking 
far into the future, they endeavored thus to establish, 
upon broad and immoveable foundations, the substan- 
tial happiness of a long-coming posterity. I venture 
not to enlarge upon their piety, — if they were not 
pious, no men and women ever were ! 

I see that simple structure for religious meeting, — 
spireless, and, I doubt not, comfortless enough to the 
outward man, — to which as external, and therefore 
not vital, — in entire consistency with their views of 
those corruptions of the establishment, which had 
made the term, so applied, odious in their ears, they 
refused the name of "church." I presume, in corre- 
spondence with a not uncommon fashion of their rural 
descendants, it was frequently " set upon a hill," — 
not merely that they might fulfil, in a strictly literal 
sense, the beautiful figure of Scripture, but in order 
that the sentinel at the door might command ample 
survey of the surrounding country, while his armed 
neighbors were devoutly worshipping within. I see a 



THREE EEAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 31 

military captain of very tender conscience, resolutely 
cutting the cross from the "meteor flag of England," 
because he could not endure to march under such a 
relic of antichrist, — and the magistrates, tenderly con- 
sidering his motive, while they rebuked the offence 
itself, since their consciences happily were a little 
more enlightened. I remark, in illustration of their 
primitive ways and condition, that the first Governor 
of Plymouth Colony was taken with his fatal illness, 
while he was laboring with the rest of the settlers in 
the field ; and that, during the first hard winter, their 
hearts sank at the discouraging tidings, that this head 
of the state had the last batch of bread in the oven, — 
and that the first Governor of Massachusetts, seeing 
that the people of Ipswich were destitute of a minister, 
travelled to that village from Boston on foot, spent 
the Sabbath with them, and " exercised by way of 
prophecy." I read with pleasure, that, some years 
afterwards, when the latter dignitary, as deputy-gov- 
ernor, was exposed to certain injurious charges, he 
descended from his chair of magistracy, which was a 
literal, not a figurative upper seat, against all remon- 
strance, — and though " many of the court and assem- 
bly," we are told, " were grieved about his being in 
that place," put himself at the bar of the accused, — 
and upon his triumphant acquittal, delivered a speech 
seldom, if ever, surpassed, for its manly eloquence, its 
dignified humility, — its just, liberal, simple and yet 



32 THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 

statesmanlike views of the great and still misunder- 
stood relations of human society. I contrast the too 
common impression, of the harsh lineaments of these 
severe Puritans, with their profound and affectionate 
lamentation over the death of a noble lady of their 
company, who, in their own language, had come 
" from a paradise of plenty into a wilderness of wants." 
And I see these men, too often reputed only cold, sec- 
tarian, narrow bigots, — sour in external demeanor, 
and inwardly almost divested of every human affec- 
tion, — upon the arrival of the wife of their chief mag- 
istrate, in the midst of many distresses, gallantly as- 
sembling to " entertain her with a guard and divers 
vollies," — and magistrates and people bringing to- 
gether such great store of bodily comforts, to attest 
their welcome, " so as the like joy and manifestation 
of love had never been seen in New England." 

It has been the general policy of warfare and of 
diplomatic negotiations, to set those forces at variance 
with each other, whereof the combined relations 
might be deemed of probable disadvantage to the ne- 
gotiating party. But, so far as I know, it was re- 
served for these just men, fearing God and knowing 
no other fear, to manifest the highest principles of 
equity, by mediating for the pacification of savage 
tribes, hostile to themselves and hostile to each other, 
and whose passions, by the superior artifices of civiliza- 
tion, might have been easily wrought upon, for the 



THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 33 

benefit of the colonists and their own extermination. 
When no efforts at conciliation were found to be of 
any avail, I observe their resolute execution of their 
necessary purposes towards an inveterate foe. And, 
in illustration of this element of their character, I 
should be glad to linger a moment, if it were possi- 
ble, over that most romantic and touching episode of 
their history, which an illustrious countryman of our 
own — too illustrious in the literature of the world, to 
permit you to claim for him anything more than the 
honor of his birth, has made forever immortal, in his 
beautiful memorial of Philip of Mount Hope. 

I run through the stormy current of our colonial 
history, — the narrative of their conflicts and apprehen- 
sions of conflicts with domestic and foreign enemies — 
the Indian, so often made to yield and the Spaniard, 
whom they, at one time, dreaded, — of very head- 
strong and wilful-minded Dutchmen, whom they sub- 
dued by themselves, and querulous, reluctant French- 
men, whom they reduced to subjection in their strong- 
holds, or aided their countrymen from home to van- 
quish, upon their most inaccessible and formidable 
heights. I read of their truly independent political 
condition, prudently and sometimes with difficulty 
upheld, against the influence and evil^speech of zeal- 
ous foes at home, as they lovingly called the mother- 
land, — and the jealous care, though more frequently 
the generous countenance, if not encouragement and 



34 THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 

support, of its own distracted state and varying gov- 
ernment ; and of that long interval, when the despe- 
rate struggles of England happily left them to the 
maturer development of their own resources. I im- 
agine their steadily advancing strength and stability. 
I see the huts, in which they first sought refuge, grad- 
ually yet rapidly exchanged for those quaint gable- 
roofed and oddly-projecting dwellings, of which relics 
yet exist, going back to a very early period, in some 
of our older towns, — exhibiting no very accurate co- 
incidence with the models of classic architecture, but 
which really seem to me far more picturesque, than 
the blank aspect of many modern edifices. They 
break through the forest, by a thousand difficult and 
dangerous paths,— the garrison-house becomes only 
the occasional place of refuge, instead of the necessity 
of nightly resort, — the close stockade gives place to 
the open street of the long, straggling village, or to 
the remoter settlement, or the lonely and still peril- 
ous farm-house, — and the buff-coat, thick enough and 
tough enough to turn away any ball, which any pow- 
der of that day could have had force enough to pro- 
pel, and which, as I have actually set eyes upon it, 
must have completely enveloped the person of the 
redoubted warrior, whom it protected in his Indian 
conflicts, eventually yields to less voluminous habili- 
ments. 



THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 35 

I see them wise, therefore, and brave and frugal 
and just and pious, with the characteristic attributes 
of heroes and statesmen and, if you please, of Chris- 
tian martyrs themselves, — and, for the sake of these 
fundamental virtues of humanity and distinguishing 
elements of greatness, I am willing to overlook very 
much, which, in their day and our own, has been too 
readily charged against them, — the banishment of a 
quaker or two, now and then, who innocently persist- 
ed in abiding under a jurisdiction, which, in accord- 
ance with what their judgment deemed essential to 
their own civil and religious peace, could not coun- 
tenance and deliberately repulsed him ; and who only 
persisted in returning, over and over again, to bear 
his somewhat officious and foolhardy testimony against 
those, who had solemnly forbidden him to come, on 
pain of death, — or other errors of the times, in falling 
into delusions, which I confess seem to me quite ex- 
cusable, under the circumstances, in comparison with 
some, which people of reputed intelligence subject 
themselves to, in our own enlightened day, — or, the 
close-cut hair, the short cloak, (so lately revived) the 
Geneva band, the formal ruff and beard, and the 
heavy-hilted, perhaps rusty, but undoubtedly service- 
able rapier of the one sex ; and, of the other, the prim 
cap, the dress, more completely if not more gracefully 
than now adapted to the form, the unadorned loveli- 
ness, and the show of only just so much lace and 



36 THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 

trinketry, as the dames or damsels of the day could 
persuade, I fear only too successfully, some of the 
more tender-hearted amongst the worthy magistrates, 
to permit them to display. 

And, upon any just judgment of the ordinary prog- 
ress of human affairs, for what speculative failure they 
can be properly accounted responsible, I do not know, 
— these founders of a Puritan Commonwealth, whose 
system was necessarily modified by advancing time and 
opinions, — who thus took possession of so considerable 
a region of an uncivilized hemisphere, and so main- 
tained themselves, under all sufferings and against all 
conflicts and discouragements, — who established prin- 
ciples of civil government still subsisting in their 
original force, and chiefly by their means diffused 
over a nation of free institutions, — who developed a 
religious character, yet venerated by a vast majority 
of their descendants, and, in spite of declensions, to 
which their own, like every other community, must 
have been subject, still seriously affecting the minds 
and conduct of their posterity, — and who entered into 
a civil compact, of mutual defence and offence, of 
such binding virtue and obligation amongst them- 
selves, that the distinctive features of the alliance, 
though not formally acknowledged now, and though 
practically superseded by State and National Consti- 
tutions, yet, in no merely theoretical sense, remains, 
— making that population, so feeble only a little more 



THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 37 

than two centuries ago and now reckoned by mil- 
lions, still a peculiar people within the bounds of its 
own territory, remarkably concordant in opinion on 
topics of public interest or importance, whether right 
or wrong ; and making the children, who go out from 
it, to whatever other state or distant country, to retain, 
in a singular degree, and after the lapse of many years, 
the habits and thoughts, the feelings and affections of 
New England. So that, under this venerated name, 
she holds her reputation, which, more than upon any 
present intelligence, enterprise, prosperity or power, 
rests upon the character of the ancestors of her peo- 
ple, resulting from their solid virtues and substantial 
wisdom ; but a reputation, which must be necessarily 
forfeited, as these ennobling elements decline. 

It has been so much a labor of love with me, to 
contemplate at some length this primitive era, that I 
find it necessary, at this point, to change the title of 
my Lecture, and passing completely over one period, 
— though less necessary, as being more familiar, — 
which I had intended to consider, for a while, under 
the character of the heroic, to proceed at once to the 
third, which I shall denominate the practical, though 
many are fond of calling it the intellectual era of New 
England. 

We launch, then, upon a wider and deeper sea, — 
and, pondering boldly, let us ask what there is valua- 
ble of the past, since such was the past, which this 
4 



38 THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 

broad, grasping and insatiable present profitably re- 
tains. For I suppose, that even the most enthusiastic 
disciple of progress, who thinks at all, does not 
imagine that man, — the human being, who has ful- 
filled his generations upon earth, now for six thou- 
sand years, imprisoned for life in this single planet, 
and possessed only of certain definite capacities, is 
absolutely to drop, like a serpent his slough, all the 
experience of his race, together with their hereditary 
and constitutional characteristics, and to walk forth, 
regenerated and disenthralled, towards some unknown 
and indeterminate point, upon the desolate ocean of 
.adventurous discovery. 

What we have been considering hitherto was un- 
doubtedly definite, — the qualities sound and positive, 
the virtues substantial and actual. The persons con- 
templated were men and women, committing errors 
unquestionably, but still their characters were true, 
and they themselves meaning something real, and 
working consistently to that end. If they were over- 
formal in their manners, this slight discrepancy with 
a more modern recklessness of demeanor resulted 
from a deep sense of personal responsibility, control- 
ling and attempering outward demonstration, — and, if 
precise in opinions, and their consequent mode of ex- 
pressing them, it was because, turning neither to the 
right hand nor to the left, they earnestly sought to see 
•clearly and so to speak of the nature and obligation 



THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 39 

of the highest conceivable duties. And if they were 
in truth good and great, it was because, endeavoring 
to leave behind them, so far as it was possible, in a 
world, the public and private duties of which they 
never neglected or disdained, the beggarly elements 
of mere worldly ways, they did actually and personally 
strive for a superior virtue and a superior intelligence. 
And since a combination of these two must form the* 
supreme rational object of human existence, and, thus 
sought, explains their remarkable traits and the accom- 
plishment of those aims, which were the wonder of 
their own day, as they will be the growing admiration 
of all future time, it would seem, that any observable 
deterioration, on our part, must imply a failure to fol- 
low in the same steadfast pursuit of substantial good. 
For this grand and universal object of every intelli- 
gent human soul, which a thousand philosophers,, 
groping blindly throughout the universe, and count- 
less generations of men have equally failed to discover, 
they sought only, where only it could be found, in the 
inmost depths of their own spiritual being. 

So far, then, as analogy avails, I should hesitate to 
look into a state of society, which calls itself practi- 
cal, for the most extraordinary developments of char- 
acter and the highest manifestations of intellectual 
power. And yet we know that all sinks, or has sunk, 
where these are absent. The level surface is in real- 
ity stagnant. There must be something high in 



40 THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 

thought and action, or all things will be equally low. 
Men are either aiming for great things, or they are 
content with small. Society either advances, or it 
recedes. It will not do for it to settle down upon 
mere absolute realities, so called — repressing all the 
human host of spontaneous and perhaps unintelligible 
desires, which are still so suggestive of nobler and 
purer, if as yet unsatisfied sympathies. For, to do so, 
let me remark, is materialism — and materialism, 
tricked out in whatever external decorations or mere 
intellectual refinements, is but a turn of the corner 
to barbarity itself. And however decent even such a 
world may outwardly appear, within it is full of dead 
men's bones and all uncleanness. It would be like 
the loathsome creatures of the earth crawling amidst 
violets, — delicacy, and fragrance and loveliness and 
bluest bloom above, — beneath, poison, distortion, and 
disgust. 

I am perfectly willing to yield to the spirit of the 
times every vain or seemingly unprofitable illusion, — 
if I can only be informed by some clearer-minded 
realist, than it has yet been my fortune to meet, what 
are the illusions and what the realities of this mortal 
state. I know that those of its things which are ordi- 
narily accounted civilization, — its palaces and temples 
and freighted ships and warehouses opulent with the 
riches of nations, and its clasps of communicable iron, 
interlacing and girdling an empire, and even its intel- 



THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 41 

lectual speculations into the abyss of the unknown, — 
may be only deceptive indications, and not its un- 
doubted proofs. I know that civilization does consist 
of liberty and order, and harmonious thought and 
feeling, and refinement and virtue, — and that the per- 
fection of these excellencies demands the cultivation 
of all the immortal capacities of the mind and heart, 
— and that, for want of our means, in this behalf, no 
nation of the heathen world ever did or ever could 
reach, or even imagine, that standard of general ele- 
vation, set forth for the example and attainment of a 
Christian age. I know, moreover, — because reason 
and observation and experience cooperate to teach the 
salutary lesson, — that these characteristics of a people 
are no more developed and sustained by the keenest 
faculties, ever sharpened in the collisions of the mar- 
ket or the contests of the forum, than by the number- 
less and nameless graces, which owe their birth to our 
imaginative perceptions, — by the infinite and vague 
emotions of the spirit within us, impressing upon the 
forms of things, as well as it is able, the pictured 
image of its own unsatisfied longings, — or by the soli- 
tary contemplations of the student of nature and of 
art, moulding the means and ends of life into the 
shapely proportions of a model, quite beyond the 
reach, it may be, of that practical conception, — around 

whose knotted hardness they yet verdantly and benev- 

4 # 



42 THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 

olently entwine all life itself can know of grace and 
blessing and joy. 

But the age of reality should, at least, be the age 
of certainty. And, as a lover of truth and a lover of 
my country, I should be glad to learn, if possible, in 
the investigation of this subject, what reasonable 
prospect there is in the future, for certain improve- 
ment in law, and order and government, and mind 
and morals, — in social opinion and social virtue, and 
whatever else may be the fundamental elements of 
happiness and prosperity, — under a condition of things, 
which I think the general judgment would pronounce 
more unsettled than ever before. We do not need to 
go to the lessons of philosophy in order to ascertain, 
that intellectual pride and conceit and self-sufficiency 
are neither the sources, the means, nor the evidences 
of knowledge ; and that presumption is a mark of 
weakness, tending to deterioration, and not of strength, 
giving promise of future good. It is an unfavorable 
state of society, which prides itself on being better 
than the past, — for then it is likely to be contented 
with inferiority, and, having no motive for improve- 
ment, it actually recedes. That individual man can- 
not and will not learn, who believes himself already 
quite above the mark of whatever has been attained 
by others in ages before. To him, the pursuits of 
those, who yet anchor themselves upon established 
truth, may seem little better than superfluous. And 



THKEE ERAS OP NEW ENGLAND. 43 

yet he may find that the probability of his own supe- 
rior progress is an important question, not yet, per- 
haps, so conclusively settled. 

It does not follow, that society is in a more healthy 
condition, because a certain amount of general prac- 
tical information, of greater or less tenuity, is diffused 
over the surface of the community. There still may 
be dreary barrens and dismal depths, in the one as- 
pect, and, in the other, no mountain of refuge, or any 
projecting cliff, to which we can fly for safety in the 
storm. The return to practical materialism is much 
more easy than many imagine. And, if we, looking 
only towards the future, reject that wisdom of the 
Past, which in morals and the science of the mind, at 
least, is the true basis of knowledge, it is not too 
much to say, that our descendants, growing gradually 
shallower and more shallow, may find themselves, at 
length, slumbering in the twilight of an age, than 
which no other has been more dark. And all our 
exterior splendors would no more indicate refinement, 
or secure freedom, than the magnificent ecclesiastical 
edifices of former times, — than the palaces of op- 
pressed Italy, than the cathedrals of degraded and 
distracted Spain. 

But, in fact, we do not, each and all, know by trans- 
mission, whatever has been learned and known before. 
This is not a present convertible possession of the world, 
upon which we can count, as an inheritance, to be the 



44 THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 

readily-employed stepping-stone to future acquisitions. 
The ordinary physical improvements in the usages of 
life can be reduced, indeed, to common practice and 
diffused, — so that much, which tends to our external 
comfort, and was altogether beyond the possible 
imagination of ruder times, becomes the general 
property and contributes to the universal welfare, — 
although nothing could be easier, than to show an 
almost total ignorance of, and indifference to, the most 
manifest improvements, even of this description, within 
the circle of our own ordinary observation. But the 
triumphs of intellect and the attainments of virtue 
are reached only by a very different process. For 
these are severally to be gained by every individual 
man, in his own generation, or not at all. In these 
there is no common stock. His training in these 
respects must be as much his own, as if nothing had 
been accomplished, in all past time ; — and, for all that 
lias gone by, there are tens of thousands in the streets 
and hovels of this city, to-night, who are neither wiser 
nor better, than the least-considered of their prede- 
cessors, a thousand years ago. I am no better, indi- 
vidually, for the moral precepts of every age of the 
world, — no wiser for its learning,- its science and its 
literature, unless their truths and excellencies and 
results have each been sought out and applied by me, 
individually, for myself. And, although science, cer- 
tainly, as being concerned more directly with the out- 



THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 45 

ward necessities of our nature, has crowned its 
eminent explorers with their fame and their reward, 
yet too much neglect of the obviously intelligible doc- 
trine I have suggested may account for other deficien- 
cies, which have been thought to denote the declining, 
rather than the essentially progressive character of 
the age. 

The popular theory, in one class of modern society, 
unquestionably is, that man, under the action of cer- 
tain mysterious influences, as yet only imperfectly 
developed, and how to be developed even, does not yet 
appear, is eventually to become something in the scale 
of intelligent being, which he never yet has been. I 
do not know to what definite extent this idea has 
been carried, or what accurate notion has been formed 
of this physical phase of progress. So far as I do 
know, the algebraic formula as yet exhibits only an 
unknown quantity. But it has been quite sufficient, 
certainly, to disturb and unsettle, to no inconsiderable 
extent, the surface of the mind of New England, — so 
that vague speculation, upon important subjects, if 
nothing worse, has either eradicated, or essentially 
modified, ancient well-defined convictions, by which 
its population was formerly marked, and which un- 
doubtedly made one chief element of its real or pre- 
sumed superiority. 

For my own part, entertaining great diffidence in 
regard to the perfectibility of human nature, if any- 



46 THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 

thing seems apparent to my mind, it is, that this 
object, if attainable, is to be reached only by certain 
legitimate means, — the leading principles of which 
are no more clearly understood, in the light of to-day, 
than when the grand system of man, as he is and is 
to be, was proclaimed and unfolded, long ages ago. 
To the moral being, the moral law was just as essen- 
tial then, as it is now, and just as applicable in all its 
general relations. Progressive, or otherwise, no en- 
tangling speculations raise him one tittle above his 
encompassing responsibilities to the lord of life and 
master of creation, or aid him to build any enduring 
kingdom upon what he seems now resolved to call the 
realities of this world. Even in the physical constitu- 
tion of nature, he must continue to find many things 
too high for him, and altogether beyond the limited 
capacity of his power. Some things, unaccomplished, 
but yet conceivable, and some, perhaps, as yet incon- 
ceivable, he still may become able to do. But he can 
never float, to any practical purpose, upon the waver- 
ing pinions of the air — he cannot ascend the mountain- 
tops without toil, or return in safety from the uttermost 
depths of ocean. He may talk of subduing nature, but 
she controls him — he is strictly subject to all her physi- 
cal laws and finds no security, except in absolute con- 
formity. A torrent of the mountain sweeps him to 
destruction, — in defiance of his boasted* skill and 
strength and courage, the proudest bark, that ever 



THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 47 

rode upon the billow, breaks under him and he sinks 
into the deep. He has not the slightest conception of 
the elementary properties of the very wind in which 
he trusts to waft him all his wealth, — and some un- 
noticed change in the atmosphere, which is the breath- 
ful food of his life, — of the causes and operation of 
which he really knows nothing, — stretches him upon 
his bier. He cannot avoid the lightning or resist the 
whirlwind. Do what he will, — be what he will, — 
there will still be peril, misjudgment, uncertainty, 
disappointment, defeat, — his stoutest purposes thwart- 
ed, his closest calculations reversed,- — he will be the 
puppet of chance, the slave of circumstances, the 
subject creature of a power mightier than himself, 
— there will still be the resistances, the non-conformi- 
ties, the uncompliant divergencies, the uncontrollable 
complications of human affairs, — there will still be 
discordant passions, interests, intelligencies, caprices, 
hopes and fears, — the failing intellect, the enfeebled 
frame, — there will still be disease, — there will still be 
death ! 

If his thoughts are tempted to pass beyond the 
routine of his daily toils, perhaps he gazes curiously 
through a hollow tube, and unnumbered mysterious 
worlds float within the scope of his projected vision. 
Of their relations to the globe he inhabits, or to one 
another, he can form no adequate idea, and he in- 
stinctively withdraws from the contemplation of a vast 



48 THEEE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 

and complex system of the universe, so utterly beyond 
the compass of his circumscribed imagination, that 
the effort at its analysis only prostrates his powers. 
Marvelling, he beholds the fiery messenger of heaven, 
periodically returning from its range of centuries, — 
and what proximate idea has ever enlightened his 
perplexed understanding, as to the mission and uses 
of this strange and startling visitant of the skies ? 
Under the common blaze of day, when he persuades 
himself he is acting his highest part amidst the recog- 
nized realities of life, — though then, more than ever, 
he is drawn away from himself, and what he actually 
is, is confounded and lost, — yet, in the confusion, or 
the concentration of his mind, he believes, perhaps, in 
nothing, but that practical, progressive state of society, 
along whose well-grooved ways and upon whose open, 
established channels of communication, men are me- 
chanically borne forward to honor and to fortune. 
But, under the hush of night, he looks into those far 
depths of unimaginable azure, — he observes the inex- 
pressible loveliness, the unfailing lustre, the unbroken 
arrangement, the immemorial order and glory of the 
stars, — not one, broad, diffusive, circumambient at- 
mosphere of daily light, — common to all and, there- 
fore, of no peculiar individual significancy, — and 
ministering subserviently to his own, amongst the 
ordinary necessities of mankind, — and upon whose 
central effulgence he neither cares nor dares to gaze, 



THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 49 

— but an infinite, separable, miraculous congregation 
of rolling worlds, each a beaming witness, indisputa- 
ble to reason, of something far surpassing the narrow 
limits of his comprehension, and each an ordained 
oracle, almost prompting his heart of ignorant pride 
to whisper to itself — What is man ? 

This* is a serious, and it may seem a sad picture of 
some of the capacities and prospects of a progressive 
age, — which, by all the superadded intellectual efforts 
of long successive generations, it must be admitted, 
is very imperfectly instructed in regard to heaven 
above and earth beneath ; — but I deem it necessary 
to be contemplated, and only too suitable to the sub- 
ject and the times. I summon the Progressive Age, 
then, and place it at the bar of deliberate and solemn 
judgment. I ask, what is Progress ? and claim its 
intelligible response. I will be satisfied with no 
vague, uncertain, sounding generalities, but call for 
an accurate definition of its nature and its hopes. 
At least, some appreciable idea of the contemplated 
voyage is the right of every fellow-passenger, equally 
interested in the freight, and to be carried forward, 
whether he will or no, he would gladly learn towards 
what point of safety, upon the same advancing tide. 
The object of life, in civilized man alone, or, amongst 
civilized men associated, is Good. What cannot be 
shown to be good, is generally distinctively evil — and 
nothing is more likely to be so, than a confused an 
5 



50 THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 

objectless condition of individual or social existence. 
Is it no longer to be assumed as certain that there 
are principles of things, true, eternal, inalienable and 
unavoidable, and universally applicable to every age 
and race ? Judged by these, if they be admitted, are 
we to become, intellectually and morally, better or 
worse ? Are we to be more intelligent, more "sound, 
more sober, more just, more honorable, more charita- 
ble, more sincere ? This is the only test. And, if it 
cannot be shown that progress is likely to bring about 
this hopeful reformation, then we may be sure our 
progress has not taken the shape of advancement, — 
and we shall be compelled to come to the startling 
and terrible conclusion, that society, under the mod- 
ern theory of progress and reality, may be breaking 
its allegiance to reason, which is the manifestation of 
truth, — and, without truth, what were this world? 
what were the universe of God ? And yet, though 
Truth itself will certainly abide, what condition of 
social existence would that be, — giving no security 
for life, or property, or freedom, — which, deserting its 
reverence for that which only is, — this golden, inap- 
preciable, immovable and imperishable true, — should 
yield itself up to the fluttering impulse of the hour ? 
For then, so far from being enlightened, upon any 
just idea of intelligence, — or safe, upon any probable 
calculation of stability, — or free, in any rational sense 
rof liberty, — we should have become enslaved to a 






THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 51 

vague public opinion, which has no substantial, set- 
tled, definite, responsible existence, — which sprang 
up, it knows not how, — is directed by influences, it 
knows not what, and is rapidly bearing us forward, 
we know not whither. 

But, perhaps, my distinction between an intellectual 
and a practical age was unnecessary ; and though, 
upon a superficial glance, they might seem the direct 
antitheses of each other, yet they may be found, after- 
all, to be mere convertible terms. For, consider that 
the human being is in his best estate, when his moral 
attributes cooperate most harmoniously with his intel- 
lectual faculties. Could these be perfectly conjoined, 
according to his order, he would be a perfect being. 
Divest him of the first, which regulate his relations to 
society and his Maker, and his mind reverts at once 
to the contemplation and sordid pursuit of present 
good. He may build and sow and reap and get gain.. 
He may exercise the keenest insight into all his mate- 
rial aptitudes and necessities and the means of their 
adaptation and supply. He may fathom not only the 
depths of physical science, but may speculate within 
a certain range of intellectual philosophy, and inves- 
tigate and unfold the subtle principles of human gov- 
ernment. So far as his faculties are employed upon 
the practical pursuits of mankind, he still is merely 
practical, though he may be eminently intellectual. 
But if, in regard to moral sense, he hold himself 



52 THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 

amenable only to the policy of life, his intellectuality, 
controlled by no reference to immutable truth, will 
be likely to lead him to mere abstraction, — and ab- 
straction, unless regulated by a just sense of the moral 
relations of things, is sheer fanaticism. He may seem 
to himself, then, and to others, to be even a reformer 
and a philanthropist, and a speculator in the univer- 
sal, material, external welfare of mankind. The 
natural quest of the sublimated human mind, working 
with its own unassisted powers, and dissatisfied with 
the apparent condition of things, is not after the reali- 
zation of an excellence in itself, which might be prof- 
itable, but for the abstract idea of absolute perfection 
in human affairs, — for perfect equality, — perfect free- 
dom, — and even, so far as the practice of outward 
virtue is found requisite to the public interest, for 
perfect goodness itself, — and yet with no desire 
prompted by a single just motive. And, so it would 
be seen, that this speculative intellectualism may be 
striving after only a seeming positive, which constantly 
eludes its grasp, and be turning away from only a 
seeming ideal, which, by gradual assimilation to its 
nature, might be converted, at length, in its own 
essence, into a reality of supreme excellence. And 
so, it would be like the rudderless barque, otherwise 
fitted to traverse the great Atlantic and Pacific deep, 
— yet miserably stranded upon the nearest shoal. 
For, in fact, it would carry into the practical opera- 



THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 53 

tions of life the very chimera of society, imagined in 
the month of one of his characters, by the nniversal 
poet of wisdom — 

F the commonwealth, I would by contraries 
Execute all things ; for no kind of traffic 
Would I admit, no name of magistrate, — 
Letters should not be known ; riches, poverty, 
And use of service, none ; contrast, succession, 
Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none; 
No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil ; 
No occupation ; all men idle, all, 
And women too. 

In a word, snch a theorist merely dreams ; and his 
dreams, wearing the semblance only of excellence, 
are in reality mischievous, instead of beneficial ; and 
the prevalence of his speculations is anything but an 
encouraging test of the substantial welfare and wis- 
dom of the community. And, accordingly, to such 
an exemplification of the extravagant impracticabili- 
ties of the intellectual era, the wise poet still replies, 

Prythee no more, — thou dost talk nothing to me. 

It was a very different glance given by one, whose 
glances were like the blades of piercing spears, at a 
social state actually sanctioned by the consenting tes- 
timony of all human experience, — by one, who was 
certainly a very great man (while there were great 
men) of strong, noble and magnanimous character, 
and of whose personal virtues, so far as I know or 
5* 



54 THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 

believe, there can be no dispute. It is to be found in 
the speech of Oliver Cromwell to his second parlia- 
ment, — couched in his peculiar style of phraseology, 
and unfolding, within the compass of a hint, the germ 
of principles always worthy the profoundest consider- 
ation. 

"And so many of them," says he, "as are peace- 
ably and honestly and quietly disposed to live within 
the rules of Government, and will be subject to those 
G-ospel rules of obeying magistrates and living under 
authority, — I reckon no godliness without that circle ! 
Without that spirit, let it pretend what it will, it is 
diabolical, it is devilish, it is from diabolical spirits, 
from the depths of Satan's wickedness." 

I am detaining you, I know, very much too long, 
but you will see it is upon a topic susceptible of much 
more extended and particular treatment, than a lec- 
ture permits. Allow me, however, to bring to a close 
this discussion of social principles, which is so inevi- 
tably general, and yet drawn up with no lack of such 
thoughtful care, as it was in my power to bring to the 
consideration of a subject, which challenges an inter- 
est and attention beyond all others, in its relations to 
morals and manners and education and government 
and religion, — in a word, to the structure of society 
itself and the apparent symptoms of its health or its 
disorder. 

There can be no doubt that the mind of New Bng- 



THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 55 

land has been very much stirred up, in these latter 
days, and that very great changes have already taken 
place, in the personal characteristics, as manifested by 
the expressed opinions and general demeanor of the 
people. I know that this is called " movement," imply- 
ing a progressive advancement, — and that it fails not 
to find many ardent eulogists, in the various depart- 
ments of public oratory and literature and the press. 
Those, who are venturesome enough, either to resist 
or to stand aloof, expose themselves to a good deal of 
obloquy and ridicule, as men bigotedly and perti- 
naciously resolved to stay behind the times. 

Superfluous lags the veteran on the stage 

is the somewhat inconsiderate moral of the modern 
doctrine. Still, the real question remains, whether 
these thoughtful persons may not be wisely striving, 
for their own substantial benefit and that of society, 
to make good the hold they have upon the solid and 
permanent shore, while this ungovernable ship, the 
times, has been only buying, at a price, discordant 
and contrary wind-bags of every treacherous and mis- 
chievous witch upon the coast, and then madly put- 
ting to sea, amidst these angry and conflicting cross- 
blasts of 

Caurus and Eurus and Argestes loud. 

You would not have me say, I know, that amongst 



56 THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 

any considerable portion of the better classes, in old- 
fashioned, sensible, sturdy, worthy, respectable, and 
consequently respected New England, there was to be 
seen in raorals, rather a convenient formality, than 
any settled basis of character, — that its former sober 
and proverbial Yankee inquisitiveness of mind was 
degenerating into mere flippancy of manners, — that 
its system of education might be found to prove only 
a delusion and a snare, — and by growing more tech- 
nical and wider in its range, it was in danger of 
becoming little better than the thinnest possible out- 
side burnish, — and that, especially, the lilies of the 
garden of knowledge were often only very wastefully 
painted, — that there was really less regard for the 
great and valuable principles of government, anxiously 
to be upheld, under all popular institutions, like the 
pillars of the temple of freedom, than for the manage- 
ment of the state, as a mere engine of political 
schemers,— and that the fervent faith of the fathers 
was strangely growing cooled, under the blazing sun- 
shine of an enlightened age, into a more than Laodi- 
cean lukewarmness. 

And yet, if apart from the manifest improvements 
in our outward state, there be reason to think, that 
such are amongst the observable indications of what 
is now called Progress, — and if, as a consequence it 
appears, that those, who assume to be our leaders and 
guides, the organs of public opinion, the controllers 



THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 57 

of public sentiment, and thus the very contrivers and 
framers of public action, are of a class, in which such 
characteristics are more clearly seen, as they are 
more naturally and easily reached, than the nobler, 
greater and less easily attainable qualities, which 
result from high principle and severe self-discipline 
and a just public requirement, — then to me it seems, 
that the subject demands the deliberate and undis- 
couraged devotion of the wisest, best and truest 
minds amongst us, — and that a steady administration 
of wholesome truth would profitably take the place 
of an almost universal spirit of self-laudation. For, 
seeing our natural faces in such a glass, we straitway 
forget what manner of men we are. Nor, thus blinded, 
can any true improvement be made, which is only to 
be carried forward upon the settled, recognized and 
universal principles, which spring, like flowers or 
like weeds, at the very sources of man's 'moral na- 
ture. And this is just as certain, as it is, that humil- 
ity is the main helper of all virtue and all knowledge, 
which a conceited, pragmatical and retro-active spirit 
only obstructs. 

I trust I have made no such unprofitable use of 
my means of observation and reflection, and of the 
lessons of history and the instructions of religion, as 
to form any extravagant and indefinite expectations 
of society. The fruit of the tree of knowledge of 
good and evil is still as bitter in the mouth of man, 



58 THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 

as it proved to be, to his original taste. I am quite 
willing you should understand me to believe that 
condition of society to be the most healthful and 
prosperous, in which men really appear superior to 
one another, — for then we may be sure that some 
have tasked their better faculties to the utmost, — and 
that too great uniformity does not, because in the 
nature of things it cannot indicate the approximation 
of the entire community to an exalted standard. 
For, since it is the inevitable lot of humanity to be so 
preoccupied, that any extraordinary degree of culti- 
vation is generally impracticable, except in those 
moral attributes, which are within the reach of all, so 
I do not see how any social state can be really health- 
ful, which exhibits little comparative excellence. 
Like Mr. Carlyle, I believe in heroes, though (to my 
misfortune) I never happened to read a word of his 
pamphlet, — for, without this kind of superiority, pop- 
ular institutions, which are then deprived of the spur 
of honorable ambition, which is the breath of their 
life, soon become corrupt and decay. And what can 
we say, if the conviction is irresistibly forced upon 
us, that the dead level of the community, so far from 
implying the general elevation of the masses, makes 
only too manifest the unnatural depression of those, 
who should be the examples and guides of the whole 
—their conformity to a degraded standard and com- 



THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 59 

pliant submission to the base requirements of the 
crowd. 

As society becomes widened and more thoroughly 
intermingled, under free institutions, there will be 
found, I fear, a natural tendency to deterioration. 
The apparently multiplied and diversified objects of 
life dazzle the imagination of the inexperienced, and 
draw them out of themselves, and away from the 
sense of personal responsibility, into the whirling vor- 
tex of affairs. The ordinary pursuits of mankind, in 
great communities, are often in their nature little 
more than formal and superficial. It is only strong 
minds, under such circumstances, which will insist 
upon self-cultivation. Without self-culture, there can 
be little depth of character, and without this, society 
soon runs to folly, madness, and' dissolution. In a 
more primitive condition of civilized life, the mind is 
thrown more directly upon its own resources — the 
character is more thoroughly formed upon the action 
of its natural qualities, and is less warped by daily 
submission to a criterion of opinion, subject to a hun- 
dred thousand uncertain influences — and then, if its 
purposes be good, the man becomes, if not a hero, a 
statesman, or a sage, at least, in his own degree, a 
nobler manifestation of his kind. And so, too, great 
occasions call out great traits. Undoubtedly, war, 
with all its horrors and woes, often unfolds the 
noblest, as well as the strongest qualities — courage, 



60 THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 

honor, hardihood, generosity, self-sacrifice, in man, — 
the " Ride of the Six Hundred " — the intrepid reso- 
lution of Buena Vista, — the rustic heroism of Bunker 
Hill — in woman, pity, sympathy and a channel wide 
enough for the unchecked current of all her gushing 
emotions — she becomes the very genius of patriotism, 
— of a nobler fortitude, a diviner charity, a sublimer 
love ; and we learn to come up to the sentiment of 
that " On the shield or with it," of the Spartan 
mother,- — to muse upon the hardly half-told devotion 
of the women of the Revolution to father, brother, 
lover, pledged to the embattled service of their coun- 
try, — or to glow at the story of those angelic minis- 
trations, which have forever blended the idea of relief 
to the wounded soldier with the name of the sweetest 
and most piteous songster of the skies. 

Certainly, I have not the presumption to imagine, 
that the views of society in New England, which my 
own means of observation and reflection have enabled 
me to suggest, may not be justly subject to modifica- 
tion and correction by the judgment of others. But 
I cannot help believing, that the idea now so preva- 
lent, that we are being drawn steadily forward in the 
current of an indefinite progress, is unfounded, as a 
present fact, even if it be not in general inconsistent 
with the nature and capacity of man, and therefore, 
dangerous, in proportion as it is illusory and falla- 
cious. Especially must this be so, if the theory imply 



THREE EEAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 61 

any confidence in the advancement of society, which 
is not absolutely based upon the conscious self-culti- 
vation and responsible moral accountability of its 
individual members. Logically speaking, society can 
be in its best estate, only when every individual mem- 
ber of it is performing his own private and public 
duties, according to his own best means and abilities. 
Nor will the general good be promoted by compound- 
ing for this personal effort, with any loose confidence 
in a progress, of which we know not the object, the 
instruments, or the end. 

Nor am I willing to subject myself to the misap- 
prehension of presenting a portrayal of the character 
and tendencies of New England, to its disadvantage, 
in any other light than by comparison with itself. 
Whatever opinions I may have been compelled to 
form in regard to its defects, and making due allow- 
ance for all its shortcomings and errors, especially 
those of a speculative nature, I cannot but reflect, 
with pride and pleasure, that there is no state or 
country in the world, where a man is less liable to 
molestation for his opinions, — which are thus, as it 
seems to me, most likely to work out their own even- 
tual sanction or condemnation, — or, where he may 
live in such general freedom and safety. I take the 
tone of society in New England, however inferior it 
may be to that of the superior classes, where they are 
most cultivated and refined in Europe or America, to 



62 THREE ERAS OP NEW ENGLAND. 

be yet superior to that of any other population, spread 
over a region so extensive, — and I choose this stand- 
ard, therefore, as the basis of such speculations as 
have occurred to me, in the pursuit of this subject. 

It is for the sake of these considerations, that, con- 
ceiving the population of New England to be the best 
criterion I can select, regarding it in all its aspects, 
without prejudice or favor, it could be hardly too 
much deplored, should any apparent tendency be 
exhibited by it to fall away from its ancient high 
estate. Especially, would it be a subject of profound 
regret, to see a reckless public sentiment taking the 
place of whatever true and sound principle gave its 
former character a superior stability and weight, and 
a correspondent reputation, upon any just view of 
the condition of man as an intellectual, moral and 
accountable being. For it was, unquestionably, the 
still effective working of the great qualities and char- 
acteristics of the founders of New England, which 
brought out those remarkable traits, developed during 
the period, which it was my purpose to consider as 
its heroic age, — running through the old French war, 
and presenting, long subsequently to the Revolution, 
as worthy a people, influenced and controlled by as 
numerous a body of able and noble leaders, as was 
ever seen, in any age of the world. 

Perhaps, the very worst thing which could happen 
to society, in its immediate results, is, to be thor- 



THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 63 

oughly shaken together and settled down to the com- 
bined pursuit of the inferior objects of life. What 
the eventual consequences might prove, Providence 
only knows. For, by this process, good and evil are 
inextricably mingled together, and the lightest ma- 
terial is sure to rise to the top. And, under the 
more ordinary circumstances of life, it is the natural 
tendency of the minds of men to become belittled, or- 
otherwise, according as the affairs upon which they 
are individually and exclusively set, are of a grander 
or a meaner stamp. The immortal mind struggles 
for the mastery ; but thought becomes scattered and 
confused beyond the possibility of concentration, and 
men thus lose their hold of those great principles of 
tilings, upon which all their present and future inter- 
ests are dependent. Then it is, that they require 
great crises in affairs and the storms of the soul, to 
stir them to their depths and bring them back to the 
truth. For then, ability is tested, character is weighed, 
truth is carefully considered, and opinion spread 
abroad, if not logically sound, returns upon the in- 
ventor, instead of going forth, like the down of the 
thistle, — shall I say, as now ? and no man knows, or 
cares what may become of it. Then, too, men become 
great, who, in the consciousness of their own weak- 
ness, find the elements, the motives and the means of 
advancing strength. Then, too, society, thus led, 
can make just progress, because its leaders are really, 



64 THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 

in their aims and principles and desires, "above and 
beyond the spirit of their age. 

It is in vain to ask, what is to be the end of Prog- 
ress ? But I know that society, which cannot take 
care of itself, and cannot be properly taken care of, 
except by those whom it educates for that purpose, — 
can only be wisely directed to any beneficial end by 
wise and good and true men, — such as every intelli- 
gent community should inexorably demand its lead- 
ing spirits to be. Of such a stamp, with all their 
faults and failings, was the ancestral stock of New 
England, and I need not offer evidence to convince 
you, that the basis of that character, upon which the 
reputation of New England really rests, was formed 
long, very long before our own day. And, although 
there are inevitable points of difference between the 
condition of our ancestors and our own, I know that 
no salutary advancement can be made, in whatever 
constitutes the substantial welfare of life, without the 
better personal qualities which they exhibited, with- 
out the honest motives which prompted their con- 
duct, without the learning which they honored and 
the virtues which they reverenced. But, amidst all 
our growing faults, I believe there are still the ele- 
ments of great excellence left in New England. I 
am no believer in general intellectual degeneracy. 
The unextinguished mind of man, through every age 



THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 65 

of darkness, has vindicated his immortal capacity and 
been the manifest witness of God. 

The future is not ours, — but I can conceive of 
causes, which would tend to concentrate and revive, 
once more, what I hope is the essentially sound mind 
of New England. And we might then have a progress, 
fitted to effect a reformation, if possible, not to be 
reformed, — to fix high principle, — to develop the fac- 
ulties, — to raise the character, — and relieve it of 
frivolities and formalities and insincerities — to draw 
the intellectual being away from erroneous and un- 
profitable and degrading channels of investigation, 
where only it creeps which ought to soar — to allure 
it to philosophy, rather than speculation — to induce 
it to rise on wings of beaming light, which remain 
folded or unfolded as we choose, above the surface of 
things, and so gain impulse to go sounding down to 
the depths of thought, the elements of government, 
the foundation of morals, the reasonableness of re- 
ligion, — to turn it away from the spirit of chicanery 
and the miserable self-delusions, which infect modern 
society — so that it may buy the truth and sell it 
not, — that is, hold it in possession, like an heir-loom 
of glory, and part with it at no price, — to bring the 
mind safely back from its empty wanderings into in- 
explorable space, and teach the man to devote his 
powers to that world of duties and wants, follies and 

errors, temptations and trials, — the microcosm of him- 
6* 



66 THREE ERAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 

self. And we, — the descendants of the Pilgrims and 
the Puritans, who, according to their light, had views 
of extraordinary clearness, and yet perhaps saw not 
all things, — let us devoutly cherish our trust in the 
prevalence of such glorious progress as this, promoted 
by sincere hearts and perpetuated in endless peace, — 
the very name of which, one of the chiefest orators 
of antiquity pronounced so sweet— Et nomen pads 
dulce et ipsa res salutaris. 

And yet, if Providence shall have determined oth- 
erwise, — still let us trust that, in some fiercer domes- 
tic struggle, it may be, to which all states and nations 
are only too subject, or in some fairer exercise of con- 
flict with a foreign foe, we should find our honored 
aitd beloved New England brought back more stead- 
ily to the just balance of her inherent character, — 
yet having her divines, her orators, her scholars, her 
soldiers, her patriots, her citizens like those of old, — 
and, in the glowing language of our lyric poet, whose 
laurels, wreathed upon his brow by your own noble 
State, are still the inherited honors of her soil, — yet 
counting, amongst her choicest jewels, the true suc- 
cessors of those, to whose memory the mind instinc- 
tively reverts, in every hour of darkness and public 
perplexity — 

Men, who swayed senates with a statesman's soul, 
And looked on armies with a leader's eye. 



THE USES AND ABUSES 



THE DAILY PRESS. 



The subject of my Lecture this evening, will be 
" The Daily Press." An extraordinary theme of dis- 
cussion, perhaps you will say, this general object of 
daily interest, common as the air, the companion of 
Our firesides and of all our resorts of business or 
pleasure ; suited, in its multiplied manifestations, to 
our; tastes, our habits, our pursuits, our recreations, — 
in fact, to all the diversified elements of the human 
mind, and become, at last, an absolute necessity of 
life. I am not aware, that anybody before has made 
this miscellaneous text-book ot popular literature the 
topic of a philosophical lecture. But I think you will 
see, that the very universality, which it claims, chal- 
lenges your closest consideration of its titles to regard ; 
and that an honest investigation of the characteristics, 
the merits, the deficiencies, the powers, and the obli- 
gations of anything, upon which you are really so 
dependent, ought to afford the materials and the mo- 
tives for your profoundest interest. 



68 THE USES AND ABUSES OF 

"We read newspapers, it is true," you reply, — 
" they serve the momentary purpose of their produc- 
tion and circulation ; they bear us along with them, 
abreast of the rapid flood of passing events ; they give 
us our morning subjects of discussion, and wipe the 
misty cobwebs of dreamland out of our opening eyes ; 
they afford the materials of our evening solace, and 
we drop them with our final yawn, as we sink into 
the embraces of nature's sweet restorer ; we glance 
through their columns, for casual and temporary 
amusement, — really, we seldom discover anything, 
which dwells very seriously upon the mind; what 
they contain makes, after all, but a very slight im- 
pression; in a moment, we should be at a loss to 
recall anything which met our eyes ; we fling them 
aside with indifference, though, in truth, we should 
miss them absent, — and who cares, afterwards, for an 
old newspaper ?" 

It is true, really, that there was nothing to-day, — 
to-morrow, perhaps, there will be something, to hear 
or to tell, for these modern Athenians, always pursu- 
ing, often balked, but never turned aside, from their 
anxious quest after some new thing. So far, in fact, 
as you have acquired any information of serious and 
personal interest, — anything, which intimately con- 
cerns the chief ends and high-reaching capacities of 
man's rational life and the perfection of his character, 
the impression of successive days will prove, probably, 



THE DAILY PRESS. 69 

quite as evanescent. What the reader has actually 
learned, towards the advancement of his intellectual 
and moral nature, — if, in these days of wandering 
thought and confused motive, such an object is yet 
within the range of telescopic vision — his acquisitions, 
in this behalf, may have been little better than a 
blank. He may have passed, in daily review, per- 
haps, successive and repeating columns of these cir- 
cumambulatory oracles of modern society, to the 
framing and unfolding of whose winged responses 
went so many busy fingers and still busier brains — 
and as he turns aside from the inspection, what dis- 
tinct idea remains in his mind, of that rapid succes- 
sion of incident, and of those intermittent flashes of 
speculation, which played rather upon his eye, than 
ranged themselves intelligibly before his understand- 
ing? The interest was transient, and it is gone. 
The gathered results of his eager enquiry after knowl- 
edge, where are they to-morrow ? Where are they to- 
day? The listless hour, which they occupied, took 
with it its vague impressions, 

Making them momentary as a sound, 
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream, 
Brief as the lightning in the collied night, 
That in a spleen unfolds both heaven and earth, 
And ere a man hath power to say, Behold ! 
The jaws of darkness do devour it up. 

Were the newspaper really old, it might indeed be 
estimated at sterling value. What a host of reviving 



70 THE USES AND ABUSES OF 

memories the aspect of one of those dingy sheets of 
another day inspires ! No effort of merely human in- 
tellect could now avail to keep pace with the ever- 
moving and constantly intermingling squadrons of 
the modern press, as, file by file, they wheel into the 
field of sight and march with the ever moving hours ! 
But, what touching, what affecting, what pictorial as- 
sociations cluster around their periodical advent, when 
dailies were not, but the primitive weekly sheet, with 
its well-considered summary of life's distant incident, 
and its homebred speculations, colored with the sober 
hues of thoughtful interest, made its eventful evening 
appearance, at the secluded village or the provincial 
town ! 

He comes, the herald of a noisy world, 

News from all nations lumbering at his back — 

The hardy postman, perhaps, has brought it through 
drifting snows, — or the stony street has echoed to the 
wheels of the long-expected stage-coach, — and now, 
the welcome budget is just at hand ! Close fast the 
shutters, and let the eager circle around the cheerful 
fireside, shut out, for a long, long week, from much 
intercourse with the remoter world, listen to all, which 
has stirred the hearts and affected the minds, and 
moulded the fortunes of men and cities, within the 
round of our domestic or national sympathies, — or, 
dwell, with all the vivid instincts of a wondering 
magination, upon distant news, which, for weary 






THE DAILY PRESS. 71 

months, has been laboring towards us from farthest 
Ind,— 

Damascus, or Morocco, or Trebizond. 

It is possible, that the antiquated perceptions of our 
predecessors may have been occupied, in the mean- 
time, with reading quite as profitable and instructive ; 
that, during the intervals of this intellectual commu- 
nication with the outer world, they may have found 
employment for the mind, calculated to enchain and 
reward the attention, — that what they read or re- 
flected informed the judgment, instead of scattering 
the thoughts, satisfying the mind with a glance, flit- 
ting over its unstamped surface, like successive shad- 
ows, neither imparting strength, nor educing its own 
energies ; and so rendering it really wavering and in- 
efficient in action, and incapable of the nobler and 
hardier elements of its condition and being. 

And what would we not gladly give for some old 
newspapers, which suggest themselves, as amongst 
the possibilities of the imagination ? Bring' us in, if 
you please, a file of the " Crusader." I should like 
to look over again the telegraphic report of that stir- 
ring sermon of Peter the Hermit, which raised Europe 
out of itself, and sent the flower and chivalry and the 
yeomanry of Christendom, for a cause of the heart, if 
not of the understanding, to do battle and perish, 
piously and thankfully, on the burning plains of 
Syria. Let us read, as they transpired, the events of 



72 THE USES AND ABUSES OF 






that pictured narrative, which has intermingled with 
the tissue of the world's history one broidered filament 
of golden romance, lasting as its annals, and, now 
and forever, twining itself inextricably around all the 
social relations of civilized life. What price would be 
too. dear, for an " Independent Press," for example, 
or the " Daily Clarion," of the period, proclaiming, in 
trumpet-tones, its denunciations of that brutal Henry 
of England, who made a shambles of his loves, — or of 
his still bloodier daughter, who slew the innocent for 
their faith ? Or, shall we call for the Galignani, of 
three hundred years ago, and muse upon minuter 
details than glow, even on Sully's fascinating page, of 
the early adversities and heroic struggles of that other 
Henry, — the conqueror of Ivry and bestower of the 
Edict of Nantes — of adversities borne like a man 
who was more than a king, — of his final triumph, — 
of his heavy doom, " fatal to liberty," — fatal to all 
which that age could grant to the progress of free- 
dom. Let our hearts glow, as we welcome, over the 
misty mountain's top, the dawnings of a brighter day, 
foretokening a purer faith. Let our zeal kindle to 
resist the machinations of the Medici, that bigoted 
and cruel race. How can we help a vow of ven- 
geance, as we read of murder dabbling the silver 
hairs of the good Coligni with his blood ? Let us 
recall the massacre of St. Bartholomew, in the guilt 
of its instant horrors, unparalleled, says the French 



THE DAILY PRESS. 73 

historian, by equal barbarity, in all antiquity or the 
annals of the world. We have heard their tale, — let 
us speed, on the errand of mercy, to the inmost 
fastnesses and retreats of the persecuted Vaudois, or 
cheer the indignant message of stout, magnanimous 
Cromwell, remonstrating, with words that spoke of 
flame and thunder and the sword, against Supersti- 
tion, guilty of the blood of — 

slaughtered saints, whose bones 

Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold ! 

Or, what should we say to the " Puritan Recorder" 
of 1620, faintly portraying the inexpressible emotions 
of Carver and Bradford and Brewster and Standish 
and the rest, — as they launched upon the scarcely 
traversed ocean of their pilgrimage, to brave the com- 
mingled yet conflicting elements of the coming winter 
and the unknown sea, — and left, with lingering looks, 
the home of their human affections, that they might 
peacefully commune, in the exile of a savage land, 
with the dearer home of their souls ! 

And yet, who would care to see all the glittering 
blazonry of human history sobered down by the 
homely daub of utilitarian philosophy, or reduced 
within the petty compass of a pen-and-ink sketch ? 
Who would wish, that all the sacred and tender mys- 
teries of life should be accurately sounded and sur- 
veyed and mapped out, before his eyes, — and every 
7 



74 THE USES AND ABUSES OP 



gleaming headland, on the vast ocean of time, taken 
its bearings and distances, with the clear and sober cer- 
tainty of geometrical analysis ? I rejoice that there is 
yet something uncertain, secret, mysterious, indefina- 
ble, grand — altogether out of the scope of the peering 
researches and shallow philosophy and hasty, unreflect- 
ing speculations of the day. I rejoice that there are yet 
left gaps and fissures, along the royal highway of Time, 
beyond all engineering art to level and subdue, — 
which only Imagination can fill up with her own deep- 
ening colors, and people with forms and shapes and 
fancies of her own legitimate creation. It may be 
the aim and hope of the Present, to bring down much 
which constitutes the grace, and grandeur and beauty 
of the world to its own criterion of well-investigated 
and well-defined mediocrity. But behind us, in the 
Past, are the mountains which cannot be touched. 
Between them lie sweet, mysterious valleys, practica- 
ble only to their enfranchised denizens, and never to 
be explored by the impertinent aggressions of modern 
curiosity, — within the recesses of whose shadowy for- 
ests forever sits the nymph, yet prophetic by the side 
of her whispering fountain, and the sage, whose les- 
sons of the past are now and ever will be the irrever- 
sible wisdom of life. 

But what shall we say to this grasping Present? 
Shall it lift the veil, which has hitherto shrouded the 
decencies and imparted some wholesome awe to the 



i. 



THE DAILY PRESS. 75 

proprieties and dignities of nature ? Shall it creep 
forward and forward, with noiseless step, until it be- 
comes exaggerated into a power multiform, inquisi- 
tive and irresponsible, — entering, like the plague of 
Egypt, into our bed-chambers and our ovens and 
kneading-troughs, — before whose ominous advances 
modesty shrinks away and virtue is appalled, and 
under whose cold, scrutinizing eye vice is publicly 
paraded, until the flush of detected shame fades from 
her callous cheek, — and our half-formed aspirations 
for good and the cherished affections of our lives, and 
the thoughts we would not reveal to a brother and 
whisper in no audible tones to our own hearts- shall 
they be remorselessly rifled from our breasts and 
flung, sensitive and palpitating, into the common 
mart, to be trampled over by the inconsiderate and 
jeering throng ? 

Do I object, therefore, to the freedom of the press ? 
I protest only against its mismanagement. If it has 
its value, it has also its defects. I object only to its 
license, its incompetence, its shallowness, its imperti- 
nence, its venality. I urge only the prevalence of 
those evils, in the reformation of which, those who 
control it and those who are controlled by it have a 
common cause. It is the idlest cant in the world, 
this talk which it sometimes employs, about shackling 
its freedom. It can be restrained, in this land of 
liberty, only by its own self-respect and a decent ob- 



76 THE USES AND ABUSES OF 

servance of the settled sentiments of mankind. I 
know of no reason, why freedom of opinion should not 
be indulged, in a fair discussion of its claims to public 
confidence and regard. The only real danger to the 
press is, that it will grow too autocratic in the excess 
of its own pampered liberty. I know how little one 
earnest tongue can do against the incessant murmurs 
of its ten thousand mouths. But I am conscious of 
no vague dread of a power, not always wisely and 
justly administered ; and besides, I believe that the 
ablest and soundest conductors of the press are only 
too conscious of such deficiencies and necessities, as I 
might feel it within my province to point out. 

One of the early governors of Virginia once stated 
the fact, as a matter of exultation, that there was not 
a newspaper in the entire territory under his adminis- 
tration ; and an eminent member of Congress, from 
the same State, more recently took occasion to thank 
God, that nothing of the sort could be found in his 
district. He had observed, perhaps, how potent an 
instrument it had become for good, or for evil, — irre- 
sistible in its combined energies, when it maintained 
the right, and before .which no individual strength, or 
virtue or genius could stand, when it chose, or stum- 
bled upon the wrong. His mind, undoubtedly, had 
looked upon the subject only in its least flattering 
aspects. I fear I too shall have to take some unfavor- 
able views of the present administration of the press ; 



THE DAILY PRESS. 77 

but, in speaking of its evils, my purpose is only to see 
how it may best be made instrumental to the public 
good and its own. I can conceive of a state of public 
sentiment, which would demand a higher tone, and 
would reward the application of nobler powers, than 
are usually bestowed upon the conduct of the jour- 
nals of the times. In a country like this, the Press, 
— more than its Legislatures,- — should be in the hands 
of its most enlightened and worthiest citizens. In- 
stead of making it a mere record of passing .events, 
or a mere channel of time-serving speculations upon 
trivial and temporary affairs, — or a mere pander to 
popular appetite, corrupting the public and corrupting 
itself, — would its conductors take into consideration 
sometimes the object of raising, as well as merely en- 
tertaining the public mind, what a glorious field of 
usefulness might be opened within the sphere of their 
already incalculable influence ! Surely, I do not 
mean to allege, that there are not newspapers, and 
many, which are conducted with more or less refer- 
ence to a principle so generous and beneficent. But 
who will deny, that there is a mighty swarm besides, 
issued solely upon the selfish consideration of pecu- 
niary advantage, — ready to tamper with any principle, 
— prompt to listen to any scandal, glad to sell mis- 
chief and abuse by the square, — eager to bargain, 
either to apply or withhold a venal praise ? Who, 
that has examined this subject, must not sorrowfully 
7* 



78 



THE USES AND ABUSES OF 



admit, that, instead of using their means of useful- 
ness to its appropriate end, they have tended, in many 
ways, to the manifest corruption of the popular mind ? 
That they have demeaned public sentiment, diluted 
public taste, weakened public judgment ? And that, 
amongst not the least of the evils, to which they have 
subjected society, they have substituted themselves, 
thus reduced in character and aim, for higher and 
better sources of knowledge ; and have accustomed us 
to rely upon the crude and flimsy and irresponsible 
speculations of a veiled and, therefore, mysteriously 
effective agency, for the old, sound, manly sense of 
the individual citizen, self-dependent and, therefore, 
self-reliant, who exercised himself in wholesome in- 
vestigation and reflection, and came to his honest and 
satisfactory conclusions, by a process of hard thought ? 
But who will take the trouble of thinking, when the 
newspaper editor is paid, for doing this tedious busi- 
ness in his behalf ? And thus the man is taken away 
from the exercise of his own powers ; he learns to 
distrust a judgment, which he does not use ; he be- 
comes the puppet of others, of perhaps, no higher 
qualifications than himself, who play with his opin- 
ions, loosen the hold of his social and personal obliga- 
tions, gradually modify his thoughts, mould his sen- 
timents, form his character, — leave him not a thinking, 
but an artificial and a superficial man, — and too often 
convert him into one of those feeble and wavering 



THE DAILY PRESS. 79 

creatures, common enough in our day, who are swayed 
by the weakest impulses and are insensible of the 
highest duties of manhood and citizenship and religion 
itself. 

If there be any soundness in the views thus indi- 
cated, and if correspondent changes only too obvious 
have come over the face of society, I am compelled to 
believe, that the main cause will be found, in the good- 
natured sufferance of the public towards the least 
respectable portion of the daily press. And, for my 
own part, I hesitate not to avow, that I would sooner 
rely, for a sound judgment upon men and manners 
and things, on the plain, thinking, well-schooled 
philosopher of nature, amidst her woods and fields, in 
the dimmest valley of the land, — where the morning 
radiance of the daily press scarcely sheds its perva- 
ding beams, — but another gospel, of benigner light, 
opens and instructs his understanding, — than upon 
the opinions of many of those, with whom you and I 
are most conversant in the common walks and inter- 
course of our lives, — the busiest men in the active 
pursuits of the world, who read all the newspapers, — 
that intermingled mass of eager, moving, wavering, 
puzzled beings, called society of to-day, men of unset- 
tled thoughts and indecisive minds, — who live in a 
blaze which serves only to dazzle and bewilder them, 
who learn little enough at any fountain-head of true 
and sober knowledge, but drink intoxicating draughts 



80 THE USES AND ABUSES OF 

from every shallow rivulet, which trickles or stagnates 
on their way. 

I know that all this may seem to some little better 
than rank heresy to the spirit of the age and its main 
instruments of thought. But I claim, that the great 
body of the newspapers of the day, as they are gener- 
ally conducted, do not fairly meet the assumed de- 
mands and necessities of the times. If they are to 
be read as mere matters of amusement, and to occupy 
only our idle hours, if such hours are to be found, or 
ought to be found, in this modern busy, bustling 
world of ever-existing and constantly-growing respon- 
sibilities, — even here there is a high duty devolving 
upon them, to restrain their present tendency, wil- 
fully or carelessly to mislead and debauch the public 
mind. If the age be really unsound and insincere, 
given over to frivolity, devout only in its material 
longings, impatient of truth, listening only with 
eager interest to preachers of smooth things, — then, 
nothing can be so effectual, as a corrupt and subser- 
vient press, to foster its unspiritual habitudes, and to 
pander profitably to appetites, which grow by what 
they feed on, — until the unwholesome leaven has 
finally worked itself into all the constituent elements 
of the incorporated mass, — and cause and conse- 
quence begin to act interchangeably upon each other, 
and the things which once were real become to us 
little better than shadows, and those which we once 



THE DAILY PRESS. 81 

sought for our blessings are now our bane, and the 
names of former glory are but a mockery and a re- 
proach, and virtue, truth, honor and religion, — the 
dignity of learning and the incitements to manly 
enterprise, — the grace, the charm and the ornament 
of life, — the aims, the ends and the means of knowl- 
edge, — all sink together into one common abyss of 
degradation, ignominy and ruin. 

But, on the other hand, let us soberly inquire if 
the spiritual hopes of mankind, like doves flocking to 
their windows, are now entitled to rest their weary 
feet upon the aspiring edifice of human improve- 
ment ? Have the new builders of this temple of 
Progress presented it to our eyes, truly a stable, 
magnificent and imposing sanctuary, for the refuge 
of burdened and anxious and despondent thought, fit 
to be the elect cathedral of a true spiritual worship ? 
In clearing away the accumulated rubbish of ages, 
from every vaulted crypt, weakening nothing in the 
solid foundation of the admirable structure, have 
they brought only more prominently forward the 
venerable tombs of the good and great, who lie be- 
neath, where alternate light and shadow touch them 
with an intermingling harmony of glory and gloom ? 
Will what they have affixed superincumbent, upon 
the uprising and stately pile, be likely to prove only 
a buttress of strength, — so that every fretted pinnacle 
and stalwart tower and soaring spire, shall seem 



82 THE USES AND ABUSES OP 

growing day by day, only nearer to the skies ? Are 
we sure that all within the hallowed precincts is de- 
cent and fraternal and just and wise, as truly becomes 
the completer framework of the social system of an 
advancing age? Is it certain that no trivial, faith- 
less and mocking spirit pervades the assembled mul- 
titude, desecrating the temple, while it enfeebles and 
degrades their own hearts ? Does no self-seeking 
and subservient idol of an insane worship, fashioned 
by men's hands, clothed with vanity and crowned 
with lies, sit grinning an empty approval, behind the 
altar of their devotion ? In a word, does the sub- 
stantial progress of life consist, not in the mere exter- 
nals of society, — not in those walls and ships and 
houses, — which the old Greek poet, three thousand 
years ago, affirmed could never constitute a state, — 
looking deeply into the capacities and necessities of 
our nature, and observing those true signs of mental 
and moral development, which do constitute great- 
ness or its opposite ? 

For, if the true foundation of Progress be not laid 
in whatever makes up the grand sum of substantial 
superiority in man, and shows him a nobler, higher, 
better and happier being than before, — more able, 
intellectually, so far as intellect avails, to demon- 
strate the great problem of life, — more earnest, 
morally, as well he may be, to apply the means of 
existence to their legitimate ends, — if truth, that first 



THE DAILY PRESS. 83 

indispensable element of all substantial excellence, 
has failed to become the rule of life, and the law of 
its ordinary action, — and justice has not, at length, 
been able to remove that obnoxious and blinding 
fillet from before her eyes, and not yet merit wins 
its due reward, nor goodness seems as lovely as it is, 
— if these, and other correspondent indications, be 
not amongst the observable signs of a (so-called) ad- 
vancing age, — how can we style that progress, which 
exhibits only a more striking failure to conform to 
the very fundamental principles of our being ? For 
if society be not thus seen moving — if not with one 
spontaneous and general consent of action, — yet, its 
effective battalions in advance, its music and banners 
to the front, its sentinels falling, one by one, into 
rank, and gradually drawing every distant outpost 
into the line of the forward march, together with the 
whole promiscuous multitude of the hangers-on and 
hangers-back of the upbreaking and victorious camp, 
— if society be not thus visibly moving towards the 
outer boundary (if boundary be conceded) of the 
intellectual and moral advancement of the race, — 
then, I beg to suggest the conclusion, as one of in- 
stant and unavoidable application, — that the scouts, 
skirmishers and pioneers, who are to clear the way of 
conquest, should themselves be more true, — that the 
newspaper press itself, the common and necessary in- 
strument adapted to promote the public improvement 



84 THE USES AND ABUSES OF 






and its information, upon points entering into all the 
vast and indefinable relations -of public and private 
life, should become more consonant with the hopes of 
the leading minds of the nation, and should afford 
such instruction upon our weightiest interests, as 
every rational anticipation of a higher condition of 
social intellect and moral sensibility so imperatively 
demands. 

And it may be, after all, that no ungenerous sketch 
of the elements of our social characteristics may find 
some justification in a liberal estimate of the aspects 
and tendencies of the times. It does not necessarily 
follow, I hope, that knowledge grows weaker, as it 
becomes diffused. I sincerely trust, that the limited 
degree of general enlightenment, which the great 
mass of mankind is actually able to compass, — not 
certainly complete, or perfect, or universal, but pre- 
clusively confined very much within the range of the 
ordinary necessities and powers and the absolute 
requirements of life, — should tend rather to lower 
than to raise the standard of human knowledge, and 
should operate to the actual discouragement of our 
higher faculties and capacities of attainment, by the 
incessant, multiplied and combined competitions of 
those of an inferior grade. It may not be a neces- 
sary result of the very constitution of our nature, 
that the broader diffusion of a certain generally- 
attainable amount of knowledge, more or less definite 



THE DAILY PRESS. 85 

or profound, should have the effect to render the 
absolute and positive fund of human information and 
learning and thought, — all to be acquired and culti- 
vated and wrought out only by assiduous labor, or 
grasped only by exalted genius, severally in the untir- 
ing application of his own specific faculties, by the 
statesman, the scholar, the philosopher and the poet, — 
less really available to the substantial elevation of the 
species, — of man as man, each having a common 
interest in the sum of good, and each catching some 
reflected glow from the constellated firmament of his 
brotherhood, who have " rejoined the stars," — and 
that a result so unhappy should be brought about by 
a constant and frittering process of intellectual amal- 
gamation, — so that the relations become really con- 
fused between the half-thinker or shallow thinker, and 
the mind gifted and inspired to teach, — and no longer 
one star seems to differ from another star in bright- 
ness ; but the misty orb, on the outer verge of the 
distant horizon, reveals its twinkling beams, as benefi- 
cently and resplendently beautiful, to the common 
apprehension, as the glory of the upper host of heaven, 
which magnificently shine, and shine, and forever 
shine on, — and charlatans, sciolists and smatterers 
obtain the mastery of affairs, and vain and empty 
pretension becomes the rule and standard of life ; and 
they, who yield a bewildered deference to this de- 
graded and degrading dominion, forfeit at once the 
8 



86 THE USES AND ABUSES OP 

motive, the reason and the example for the attain- 
ment of superior excellence. But the theory I would 
suggest gains some force from the proposition, — that, 
since correct habits and aptitudes of thought, upon 
speculative subjects always, and upon matters of 
practice, as a general rule, can be formed only by the 
few, who have opportunities, instead of the many, 
who are immersed in their individual affairs, — and, 
since sound and accurate thinkers are as rare as 
great men, and the list of those whom we could name, 
amongst the perfectly reliable masters of the mind 
and its attributes, would be found exceedingly limited 
in our own day, — it must be, that the multitudes of 
distinguished personages, whom the newspaper press 
is continually offering to our admiration, are in fact 
great, rather as multiples of each other, and only by 
the combined force of their aggregated powers, than 
upon the basis of any individual claim to the general 
deference and respect. 

And when we reflect upon the extraordinary devel- 
opment, energy and brilliancy of the human intellect, 
as displayed in the pursuits of science, philosophy, lit- 
erature and arms, during the first half of the present 
century, to go no further back, and consider that 
scarcely a preeminent living teacher of the human 
mind, so far as I am aware, can be pointed out, to 
meet the present wants and aspirations of an advanc- 
ing age, and to save it from very trivial tendencies 



THE DAILY PRESS. 87 

and many miserable delusions, degrading enough for 
a period absolutely deficient in newspapers, — when, 
certainly, within the circle of literature, meaning no 
derogation to the merits of two or three eminent 
names, there is no great poet or novelist, of the order 
known to that earlier era, to offer us, and so to be 
accepted, as if of divine inspiration, — the purer and 
sweeter and nobler pictures of life, — to animate us 
with exalted sentiments, as if an oracle had breathed 
its spirit to mingle with the inner longings of the 
soul, to stimulate and enchant the fancy, and to fill 
the imagination with charming pictures, which al- 
most satisfied and controlled its capacities, and glitr 
tering as the frost-work on every pendent bough, 
which the sunlight of this brilliant wintry day has in- 
vested with a more than fairy lustre, throughout the 
ample area of Nature's magnificent temple ; — when 
we conceive, that. an enduring and desperate warfare, 
convulsing the mightiest states of Europe, reversing 
the speculative doctrines of centuries, and the histori- 
cal, traditional and legendary prejudices of nations, 
and involving, probably, the future destinies of Chris- 
tendom, — that this warfare has awakened the dormant 
faculties of no leading statesman, biding his time and 
fitted for the time, and, strangest of all, has brought 
forward no unquestionable hero, no recognized king 
of men, — to the gaze of an expectant and admiring 
world, — it must give us some pause, as to the unset- 



88 THE USES AND ABUSES OP 



tied problem, of the still advancing progress, or the 
receding intellectual pretensions of the age. 

In the exercise of such judgment as I am able to 
apply to this knotty question, I am compelled to be- 
lieve, upon evidence, that there is in fact some ap- 
parent deficiency, the just ascertainment of which 
ought to stagger the overweening intellectual esti- 
mate, at present so prevalent amongst us. But is 
there not something, after all, in the theory I have 
imperfectly proposed, — and is not the newspaper press 
really responsible for a social mischief, seriously de- 
manding the public attention and claiming its own 
reformation, at the hazard of public distrust, involving 
its eventual contempt ? Ah, if I am to pay a devout 
worship, I ask no idols of wood or stone, or things, 
which I can trample upon and destroy, but give me 
gods ! Give me something, which in the conscious- 
ness of my own nature I acknowledge as higher than 
I, and to which I tender the supreme homage of 
my soul, because of its inherent essence of superior 
virtue ! My mind revolts from the adoration of things 
of brass and clay ! And is not this, too often the 
senseless and fruitless worship, which this self-consti- 
tuted image-maker of the Press, day by day, sets up ? 

If, as the poet says (and well the poet knew) excel- 
lence is the eternal food of envy r , this may account suf- 
ficiently for that spirit of detraction, which too often 
leads the Press flippantly to arraign and improvidently 






THE DAILY PRESS. 89 

to misjudge men of more than common mark, — to 
undervalue their abilities, to slur over their virtues, 
to gloat at the discovery of their failings, to molest 
their lives and despoil even their graves of the priv- 
ileged sanctity of repose. But, since true greatness 
defies every ordeal, and we may, therefore, let this 
pass, what shall we say to a practice still more vicious, 
and hostile to whatever is sound and wholesome in 
the constitution of society — which, by no warrant, ex- 
cept that authoritative plural number, — that sovereign 
" We," — which presupposes editors and kings to rep- 
resent the voice of the people, which is the voice of 
God, — gives out delusive oracles, which have the 
eventual influence to mislead, though they may seem 
to find little immediate response in the popular 
breast? For thus it is they are so ready to lavish 
printed praises upon those, who are really unfitted for 
public distinction ; to attribute superlative merit to 
very ordinary men ; to make heroes and geniuses out 
of very flimsy, commonplace material ; to create such 
hosts of human wonders, that the order of nature is 
reversed and exceptions become the marvels, — to re- 
plenish the golden fountain of eloquence out of the 
mouth of every petty politician, — although profane 
history, certainly, has sent us down but two pre- 
eminent names of the orators of all antiquity, and 
their genius trained by the laborious efforts of a life, 
fostering and developing nature, — and one slight page 
8* 



90 THE USES AND ABUSES OF 

might easily hold all who have come after them ; — 
and, though the list of the great poets of the world 
scarcely gives one, for a century, during the period of 
its reliable secular history, to claim the very harp- 
strings of the master of all song, for every pretty flut- 
tering warbler, fitted perhaps to regale us with the 
passing melodies of the hour, — to set a thousand 
scribbling men and women temporarily beside — 

the few, the immortal names, 

Which were not born to die, — 

when those who owned the names, until they were 
fairly dead in the body no medicinal fame often 
thought of embalming, — to laud private and common 
virtues, and so insult society, as if these were actually 
its anomalies and phenomena, — to blazon charity, 
whose modesty is her merit, and who is a virtue only 
when her face is veiled, — to descend, for the objects 
of our exalted admiration into the daily round of our 
ordinary pursuits, — to constitute half our Dogberries 
Solons and militia-men gods of war, — and even to 
personify in print Policeman X — to flatter publicly, 
for common duties properly performed, the well-dis- 
posed director of the train, the attentive clerk of the 
steam-boat, the obliging assistant at the hotel, the dis- 
interested purveyor of the public feast, — instead of a 
meek and quiet spirit, to stir up another, which is 
conventional, superficial, cockneyish, pert and bluster- 
ing, — to foster idle vanity and small conceit, — to 



THE DAILY PRESS. 91 

stimulate ill-founded ambitions, — to create petty jeal- 
ousies, — to engender mortifications and bad blood, — 
to stagger and discourage good sense, — to injure un- 
pretending merit and genuine desert, which scorn to 
employ the unworthy arts, of which they are thus 
indirectly the victims, — to squander vapid eulogies, 
which seek out and minister to, if they do not actually 
create, a vitiated public sentiment, but never to dig 
up concealed gold, laboriously and generously, and 
hold it forth, for the worth of the pure metal, and chal- 
lenge for it its due value, — to render, in a word, their 
praise and their censure, which, if sparingly used, would 
be and ought to be valuable, equally worthless to a 
just mind, because reckless and indiscriminating, — to 
pervert the truth of nature, by the creation of a petty 
standard of public estimation, and thus, to confute 
and confound the genuine distinctions between excel- 
lence and inferiority, — good and ill, — upon which the 
just balance of the whole economy of life, and all that 
is worth a moment's thought, is solely dependent, — 
and so, to infect with fatal disorders the very heart 
and soul of our ordinary being. And I cannot think 
the picture has been too darkly colored, since it is 
easy to see how rapidly society may be lowered by the 
operation of such causes. I do not really believe, 
that the human mind, in its inherent attributes and 
characteristics, has absolutely dwindled in our day, as 
the criterion of the newspapers might lead us to ap~ 



92 THE USES AND ABUSES OF 

prehend, — but I do think, that a false and vicious 
standard 'of things, rapidly taking precedence of the 
true, and resulting, I fear, from a depreciated moral 
sense, has tended very much to the obscurity of our 
mental vision, — -just as he, who goes abroad, under 
the loveliness of the shining night, and holds a far- 
thing candle to his eyes, shall see nothing of the eter- 
nal blue above, or of the enduring lustre of the ever- 
rolling stars. 

From such a condition of things as I have attributed 
to, perhaps, the most popular portion of the Press, to 
gossip and scandal the step is easy, — until little real 
regard is paid, by newspapers of even much higher 
pretensions, to that truth which is the life-blood of all 
civilized society, or that decency which is its necessa- 
ry mantle. So that we live abroad, instead of at 
home, which is the sole fountain-head of all reliable 
virtue, and the privacy of life is converted into an 
open spectacle, — and details, in which our firesides, if 
we respect them, can have no share, and malicious 
discussions of character, such as no private assembly 
of reputable men and women would countenance, are 
daily presented in print, for the amusement and to 
the peril of the injudicious and unthinking. And we 
may justly fear, that the best-conducted portion of 
the press is becoming only too careless in regard to 
the responsibilities of publication, and, that, — sep- 
arating and leaving off two of the important elements 



THE DAILY PRESS. 93 

in the apostle's triply-conjoined definition of charity, — 
of theirs it can only be said, and that in more senses 
than one — " It believeth all things." 

But a newspaper, in order to be useful, or even to 
retain the semblance of its wonted authority, must be 
careful not to come down to the momentary and fluc- 
tuating impressions of the populace. In some sense, 
if it have any value for its character, it is constituted 
an arbiter and a judge between the Truth and its 
constant liability to factious or interested popular 
perversion. As a mere vehicle for the diffusion of 
general intelligence, it should exercise a judgment 
and forbearance, regulated by some just standard of 
true public utility. It should present us only with 
such articles of information, as it behoves the public 
to know, — not seeking merely to gratify a prurient 
curiosity, but affording whatever may be valuable 
and useful to men and women, who have serious 
business in the world to perform, or who require to 
be "refreshed and invigorated by innocent amusement. 
And, above all, it should make only those persons the 
subjects of public comment, who are really public 
property,— such as candidates for office, or those who 
come before the world voluntarily, as literary or pro- 
fessional men, who ought to expect to be properly 
discussed, and a thorough investigation of whose 
claims is the public right and enures to the general 
benefit. 



94 THE USES AND ABUSES OF 






Indeed, in a condition of society devoted so thor- 
oughly to this description of reading, as a substitute 
for books, and which is fast taking the place of books 
of any sterling value, the profession of an editor, 
however lightly it is often undertaken, seems to me a 
charge of very high responsibility. Certainly, in a 
country of free institutions, the daily questions arising 
in the science of politics, — which, although a little 
distorted in its practical operation, is but . another 
name for public morals, — require the application of 
abilities of no common order ; and, unless the trum- 
pet is to give an uncertain sound, demand a keenness 
of susceptibility to the motives and obligations of 
duty, to be found only in the complete organization 
of the head and heart of a whole man. That he, who 
undertakes to instruct others, should be himself a 
person of sound education, I care not how acquired, 
would be only a truism, if the theory were not so 
frequently contradicted in practice. And if the mind 
of him, who addresses us under so many interesting 
aspects, shall have been substantially trained by the 
reason, if not the rules of logic, — if he has been for- 
tunate and diligent enough to have gathered up the 
treasures of a broad general information, — if he has 
accustomed himself to the exercise of a rapid analyti- 
cal faculty, — if he enjoy the blessings of stability of 
purpose, conscientiousness, prudence, forethought and 
forbearance, possess the rare ability to see a ques- 



THE DAILY PRESS. 95 

tion in all its relations, the sagacity to discover and 
boldness enough to tell the wholesome truth, — he 
would then be such an editor, as we would gladly see 
at the head of more of the newspapers, now dissemi- 
nated so widely over the surface of our common 
country. Indeed, I know of nothing more refresh- 
ing, in our times, than to take up unexpectedly a 
sterling newspaper, — and such there are, — which has 
the ring of the true metal about it, — neither conven- 
tional nor qualified, nor looking after momentary 
applause, — not appearing before our eyes, tricked out 
in harlequin garments of opinion, patched over with 
the shreds and tatters of real or supposed popular 
prejudice, — but cheering us with the honest senti- 
ments of one, who does not forget he is a man, 
though an editor, — who looks over society with a just 
purpose, seeing its wants, rebuking its errors, en- 
couraging its better impulses, — not waiting to see 
which way the current will eventually move, and so 
holding back for a favorable moment to jump upon 
the top of the flowing tide, under the weak fear of 
losing some unsteady and often worthless patronage, 
— but meeting and taking the responsibility, — really 
digging for the truth, which is the great public con- 
cern, as for hid treasures, — in the discharge of his 
proper duties of investigation and reflection, really 
leading, because he has thought, instead of following 
the public mind, — which thinks, too, but not always 



96 



THE USES AND ABUSES OP 



correctly upon its first impulse, — and thus, upon a 
substantial basis, meriting, and consequently, in one 
satisfactory shape or another, winning his due re- 
ward, 

I know well enough that there are newspapers of a 
high and improving stamp amongst us. Perhaps, 
the popular demand for those of a higher grade has 
not yet fully* warranted that general division of labor, 
which collects the available talent of many, each in 
his specific sphere of usefulness, for the instruction 
and entertainment of the multitude, and thus renders 
the journals of the old world so much superior to our 
own. Certainly, no one person can be expected to 
know everything. But, on the other hand, absolute 
ignorance on the part of editors, in regard to the 
common topics of intellectual society, is an offence, 
culpable because implying presumption, and because 
it is directly prejudicial to the cause of human im- 
provement. And, no doubt, the reader sometimes 
thinks it a serious abuse, when the editors do not 
seem to know how often a good story, or a good joke 
has been produced before, and impute to the sailor 
or the Hibernian of to-day jests and blunders, much 
older than those found in the facetious, but some- 
what familiar writings of the late Mr. Miller, — such 
as the Greeks and Romans laughed at, many cen- 
turies ago, and which amused our boyhood, — and 
still more, when they bring forward the very com- 



THE DAILY PRESS. 97 

mon-places of literature, as if they were fresh contri- 
butions to the fund of good learning, — treating us 
over again, for new, with the high sentiment and 
generous thought, sparkling like jewels on the golden 
pages of the masters of mere English letters and phi- 
losophy, — which they imagine they have thus dis- 
covered, though others have dug them out often and 
long before, — -and so, by their mode of reproducing 
other men's creations, not only rob them of their just 
praise, but, thus checking invention, throw positive ob- 
stacles in the way of human progress and improvement. 
But above all others, there is one field of discus- 
sion, upon which newspapers, now-a-days, have some- 
what arrogantly entered, in the labor of which they 
have shown, to a marked degree, their own inef- 
ficiency in the ordinary arts of cultivation, and have 
well nigh converted the fair domain of the republic 
of letters into $n unwholesome wilderness of worth- 
less and noxious weeds. I think they are responsible 
for it, in an eminent degree, and the fact shows how 
really disqualified newspaper editors often are for the 
office of literary critics. I will give them the credit 
of sometimes admitting, that they are not themselves 
very well versed in such matters, and of pleading / 
that the necessities of their position preclude them 
from the proper consideration of subjects, so essential 
to the welfare of all intelligent and cultivated society. 
But then, the wonder grows, with what hope of 
9 



98 THE USES AND ABUSES OF 

generous service to a noble cause, against that stalk- 
ing giant of Error, always advancing to defy the 
armies of Truth, — they put on harness which they 
have not proved, — and upon what theory of moral 
accountability, they yield up their means of influence, 
if not their judgment and duty, to interested and 
often incompetent parties, who, for the most selfish 
ends, mislead and abuse the public mind and inflict 
infinite injury upon the cause of a healthy and ser- 
viceable literature. I do not mean to assert, that an 
entirely accurate knowledge of the technical canons 
of criticism, however useful, — and a mind stored with 
all the diversified accomplishments of elegant scholar- 
ship, and a memory, furnished, like a well-ordered 
battery, with all the bristling armament of attack and 
defence, — though, of the utmost service, as those of us 
who are deficient in them often feel, in attempting to 
make up a deliberate opinion upon any book, — that 
these are absolutely necessary, to enable us to deter- 
mine what works of the day we may read with profit, 
or what might tend to pervert our taste, take the 
bloom off of the freshness of our moral sensibility 
and belittle our understandings, — and the reversals 
of cotemporary decisions, which time at length de- 
crees, might teach us all some modesty as to the 
value of a too hasty judgment, — bringing this one 
down and setting up another, — and our own expe- 
rience of the estimate we place, to-day, upon those 



THE DAILY PRESS. 99 

writings, over whose pages we wept or laughed, a 
month ago, and which we do not care much to look 
upon again, — tend very much to show the importance 
of a higher and sounder standard of criticism, than 
can be conveniently maintained in the columns of a 
daily newspaper. 

But I do claim, that the lavish and indiscriminate 
praise bestowed by the newspaper-press, often with a 
strange unanimity, upon swarm after swarm of worth- 
less and sometimes really pernicious writings, argues 
either a blindness of judgment, which requires much 
enlightenment, or a willingness to tamper with the 
best interests of society, demanding its emphatic rep- 
robation. I do earnestly object and protest against 
a practice, degrading to the press and treacherous to 
its trust, under which it sacrifices that impartial ex- 
pression of opinion, which is the sole test of its inde- 
pendence, and the only basis of its utility, and thus 
betrays the public confidence, by selling literary judg- 
ment, which should be above price, to be valuable at 
all, — by permitting its sheets to become the mere vehi- 
cles of those, whose only object is pecuniary gain, — and 
by thus dragging folly, impudence and vice through all 
the foetid channels of society, and often, over paths 
of fresher fragrance and purer light, where only inno- 
cence and peace ought to enjoy the loving and secure 
domain. As if it were not enough for the press, in 
some of its manifestations, to come forward in forma 



100 THE USES AND ABUSES OF 






pauperis, and make appeals of solicitation to the 
public sympathy and support, which may not be un- 
reasonable, when they are really deserved, — or, in 
other moods, to assume a bolder front, and claim for 
its dictates the sanctity of supreme law, — to insinuate, 
that he, who does not study their columns, might as 
well neglect all other studies, — to remind the thought- 
less multitude of direful and complicated disasters, 
always impending over that unwary, and now, I sup- 
pose, merely hypothetical individual, who does not 
take the papers, — as if it were not enough, by thus 
pushing their own circulation, to have substituted, in 
a great measure, for the solid food of the mind, lucu- 
brations, often excellent, but which, every intelligent 
editor knows, afford, after all, a very unsatisfactory 
repast for the hungry mind, — so that the very ele- 
ments of our mental growth, the guides of our youth, 
the refreshment of our manhood, the solace of our 
age, the material of our reflection, and the inspira- 
tion of our progress towards the stars, — the secret 
fountains of good literature, whence the soul draws 
vigor only upon diligent quest, must be unsought 
(for who does, or who can find time for this, if his 
restless thirst for knowledge is momentarily allayed 
by these trickling way-side rills ?) — as if this were not 
quite enough to disorder the faculties and to enervate 
the strength of the general mind, — still more, — in the 
indulgence of a growing venality, many, certainly not 



THE DAILY PRESS. 101 

all, must lend themselves to purposes of popular de- 
ception, notorious to the well-informed ; and if they do 
not themselves dress up falsehood, yet allow her to be 
so arrayed at the foot of their own tribunal, and 
thence issue forth in the stolen habiliments of truth, 
— making her thus appear sectarian and factious, who 
ought to be universal, — consenting to the irresponsible 
creation and announcement of a thousand narrow, 
partizan, and yet extravagant reputations, truly bub- 
bles, — and selling incalculable mischief for a paltry 
consideration, — until, at length, in the very nature of 
the case, a sort of conventional condition of things 
would be likely to grow up, — so that neither would 
the editor be expected to mean what he alleged, nor 
would anybody, but the unsuspicious, be expected so 
to understand him, — and nothing would be so var- 
nished and insincere as newspaper praise, — nothing so 
truly fictitious, as a wide-spread literary reputation, 
when it had been thus gained, and, at length, the gen- 
eral and apparently spontaneous laudation of the press 
might be almost assumed to be a general conspiracy 
for public fraud. 

Indeed, one would seem, sometimes, almost driven 
to the conclusion, that newspapers conceive it their 
business to praise most those books, which undoubt- 
edly need the most charitable consideration of their 
character ; and that the critical opinion expressed, is 

not so much the result of a fair judgment of the 
9# 



102 THE USES AND ABUSES OF 

merits, as it is evidence of some morbid sympathy, 
touched by the very defects of the production. A 
well-regulated and truthful mind will accord praise 
only to deserving objects. One which is ill-regulated 
is little disposed to admit the claims of anything, 
which is superior to its own capacity ; but rather flat- 
ters its own self-estimate, perhaps, in bestowing com- 
pliments upon whatever it accounts inferior to itself ; 
because, in the latter instance, its native vanity is not 
necessarily lowered. And sometimes, we may fear, 
that, in this world of ours, men endeavor to escape the 
contempt to which they are themselves subject, by 
striving to debase others to their own level. 

Besides, in order to exercise criticism justly, judg- 
ment, taste and skill, as well as a mind open to fair 
impressions, are essential, while none of these quali- 
ties are requisite, to enable the writer to pile up elab- 
orate generalizations of praise. The consequence 
is, that the latter style of remark is often employed, 
in these vehicles, when the editor knows not what else 
to say ; and, frequently, commendation is so lavished 
upon unworthy objects, that a just and reasonable ex- 
pression of approbation, of a really meritorious, useful 
and valuable work, would seem almost like censure 
itself, it falls so much below the exaggerated and ex- 
travagant criterion of ordinary encomium. For truth 
and excellence these newspapers, as we would bene- 
volently conclude, often appear to imagine, can take 



THE DAILY PRESS. 103 

care of themselves, — and so they leave them to the 
chances of good or ill-fortune ; while every veritable 
imposture really seems to elicit all their good offices ; 
and they assist it to puff and swell itself up into a 
vain show, and thus to deceive the populace, which of 
itself is sufficiently resolved on being deceived. And 
they thus forget or betray the doctrine of a sentiment, 
as wise and useful now, as when it was first pro- 
nounced — Virtus rector em, ducemque desiderat, vitia 
sine magistro discuntur. 

These opinions may seem bold, — but they would 
require much more firmness for their expression, if 
the more intelligent and well-disposed of the class 
indicated were not already sensible of great defects 
and evils, of this and other descriptions, in the man- 
agement of newspapersy— and if these ordinary means 
of public information and enlightenment were not 
already groaning under many burdens of this sort, 
which they know not how to lift, — and if I did not 
feel confident, that all the honest conductors of the 
press will rejoice in whatever shall do something 
towards their relief, by directing public attention to a 
great and growing mischief, in the correction of which 
the public is so deeply interested. 

Is there any remedy for this evil ? To the honor 
of whatever is best in society, be it said, that, although 
vast mischiefs, already existing, owe their origin and 
their continuance to the unbridled license, the indis- 



104 THE USES AND ABUSES OP 

cretion and the ignorance and falsity of a portion of 
the press, — that, though by their means feverish ex- 
citements have been fanned, leading to deadly disor- 
ders in the body politic and social, — though from this 
source the minds of the young have been poisoned, 
the peace of families has been destroyed, the authority 
of wisdom, virtue and experience set at naught, the 
purity of life polluted, and a flippant, mocking, dis- 
believing spirit sent current into the ordinary avenues 
of the community — yet the growing indifference to 
the opinions of newspapers, once carrying weight and 
authority, — not to be ascertained, perhaps, by the 
statistics of their circulation, but in the fact, that the 
public look to them, more and more, as mere matters 
of amusement and vehicles of ordinary intelligence, 
— -shows that society will demand something more 
reliable, and suggests to them the necessity of a more 
judicious management and a more elevated tone. I 
am not willing, for one, to pay a servile homage to 
the formal or informal dissertations of a newspaper, 
written, as I happen to know, by a certain definable 
individual, perhaps, an acquaintance or friend, whose 
capacity and standard may be accurately guaged, 
although he may be supposed to represent, and may 
misrepresent, the opinions of any sect, or clique, or 
combination. But I respect his calling, — I value his 
opportunities of usefulness, — I honor and prize his 
power to disseminate valuable information, and the 



THE DAILY PRESS. 105 

vast capacity of his means to promote that true aim 
of all rational society, — a community of good-feeling, 
intelligence and virtue. Him I personally esteem 
more than ordinary men, — his press I hold as a just 
exemplification of the choicest blessing of human 
invention, — when he honestly dedicates his abilities 
to this beneficent purpose, and speeds the winged 
messengers of thought upon so charitable a mission. 

When I consider how fluctuating is public opinion, 
— how readily popular sentiment may be raised or 
depressed, by the operation of external influences 
brought steadily and continuously to bear upon it, 
and how much the cause of true knowledge and true 
freedom is dependent upon the current expression of 
public thought, — I could wish, if it were possible, that 
some higher standard might be contrived by human 
ingenuity, for the authorized tone of newspaper specu- 
lation. If it be assumed, that the march of human 
events is to place society eventually in a more elevated 
position, than it has heretofore attained, — since, obvi- 
ously, this could be the result only of its intellectual 
and moral advancement, — that is, of the higher con- 
trol conquered by our supersensible faculties over our 
material nature, — it follows, that, unless the means of 
progress are really of a character calculated to pro- 
mote, rather than retard an event so desirable, the 
position is itself erroneous. Taking into view, there- 
fore, the fact of the extraordinary circulation secured 



106 THE USES AND ABUSES OF 






by the newspaper press,- — and that, by its demands 
upon our time, and by means of its creation and 
encouragement of a popular taste, it has contrived 
to substitute itself, in a great measure, for former 
sources of mental refreshment and discipline, — the 
writings of poets, orators, philosophers and historians, 
— whose speculations are concerned about the essen- 
tial elements of life, and whose works are approved 
by the deliberate judgment of mankind, — it becomes 
us to inquire, if this new instrument of progress be 
in advance, or behind, — above or below, the actual 
necessities of the times. Are those, who, by the force 
of circumstances, have gained this extraordinary facil- 
ity of intercourse with the masses of the community, 
entitled to their preeminent advantages of influence, 
upon their merits and their honor, — adding living 
stones, day by day, to the growing structure, which is 
eventually to constitute the perfect and completed 
edifice of human good ? Or, are they pursuing, — as 
neither poets, orators, philosophers or historians, who 
have acquired any permanent fame, have ever done, 
— a temporizing policy, likely to accelerate the down- 
ward impulse of general deterioration ? 

If we rely upon newspapers, instead of thinking for 
ourselves, we have really constituted a numerous 
body of public instructors, leading public sentiment, 
moulding public morals, forming public and private 
character, effecting great changes in our social condi- 



THE DAILY PRESS. 107 

tion, working to some end, and, therefore, undermin- 
ing, if they are not strengthening, the foundations of 
our civil rights ; and it is high time public attention 
were awakened to the fact. But why should not 
those, who are to educate the people, be themselves 
educated, for the public service, upon the public re- 
sponsibility ? For education, by which is meant the 
complete training of the mind, and, if you please, 
the body, — though it renders no man perfect, — does 
tend to the enlargement of his faculties and the eleva- 
tion of his soul, — so that they, who come from the 
select company of those, who, in all ages, have digni- 
fied and glorified the condition of manhood, are less 
susceptible of mean views, — less liable to petty temp- 
tations, — less easily controlled and led away, by the 
madness of the populaco demanding infamous com- 
pliances. I am sure, I should be glad to see a col- 
lege, or a commission established, to settle upon a 
firmer and fairer basis the theory of editorial qualifi- 
cations, — not certainly rendering such training indis- 
pensable, because this might be to erect a censorship, 
dangerously interfering with the just exercise of popu- 
lar liberty, — but to raise the standard of instruction, 
in ethics, as well as in learning, amongst those, whose 
duty and whose privilege it is to teach. I know not 
why, in this way, the whole corps editorial, like the 
learned professions, in this and all other civilized 
countries, might not eventually and safely be placed, 
under the guidance and protection of the law. Is 



108 THE USES AND ABUSES OP 

such an idea impracticable or inexpedient ? Or, is it 
not rather an object of the clearest common concern, 
that the requirements of this profession should be 
such, as to warrant its pretensions to be ranked 
amongst the highest intellectual pursuits-, and so to 
make its influence as beneficial, as it is already widely 
extensive ? We establish schools, under the law, and 
with suitable regulations, for the purpose of convert- 
ing boys and girls into such men and women, as shall 
adorn and bless society, — and I see not how this great 
public school of morals and of knowledge should fail 
of converting men and women into children again, 
unless a correcter public sentiment should regulate 
its license, and give the spur to a more honorable 
ambition. 

I sincerely trust, that none of those, whom I have 
had the honor to address, this evening, will have mis- 
apprehended the true scope of my views, or the just 
nature of my motives. I know not how any abuse 
can stand a chance of reformation, unless it be fairly 
and freely presented to the public ordeal, and brought 
to the test of that judgment, often momentarily erro- 
neous, seldom wilfully and permanently perverse. I 
have not discharged a duty, which many might con- 
sider thankless and even invidious, — so much are we 
the slaves of opinion, — because I look upon the Press, 
taking its abuses, together with what it has of enlight- 
ened and legitimate action, as anything else, than the 
most available and indispensable common instrument 



THE DAILY PRESS. 109 

of human progress, — but because I would see it shake 
off some of its modern vices, and reinstate itself in 
public confidence, and grow with it to a nobler stat- 
ure, by a juster and more generous administration of 
its powers. My only fear is, that I have been unable 
to do the work proposed, even if it were in my power 
at all, so thoroughly as I had hoped, within the lim- 
ited compass of a single lecture. I have expressed 
these opinions, because I entertain them. I do not 
know, that any one has undertaken formally to pre- 
sent the subject in. this light before. I have consulted 
no authority and have read no book. My views, such 
as they are, are the result of some experience and 
means of observation, and of a great deal of inevita- 
ble reflection. I seek only for the press, that it may 
be entitled to a higher honor, and enjoy a wider sphere 
of usefulness. I would have it, therefore, manly, 
vigorous, thoughtful, generous, elevated, just and 
sincere. Upon this mature development of its char- 
acter will very much depend its future influence upon 
popular sentiment ; and it is the manifestation of this 
sentiment, which is to advance or retard the substan- 
tial improvement of mankind. 

Note. — While this volume is going to press, the author makes the 
following extract from a leading New York paper, the amplication of 
which to his whole subject is obvious. " Party-spirit pervades nearly 
the whole press, — religious as well as secular ; and every paper, in the 
interest of any party, whether moral, eccbsiastical or political, resorts 
to devices for promoting its ends, which a rigid judgment would prob- 
ably be compelled to regard as immoral." 
10 






MR. MACAULAY 



WARREN HASTINGS 



It is now more than forty years ago, since two 
young Americans, wlio at that period happened to 
be in London, amongst other objects of curiosity and 
interest, were induced to visit Lansdowne-House, then 
the town-residence of the Marquis of Lansdowne, well- 
known, in his day, in the circles of politics and letters. 
It is understood, that the-show-palaces of the English 
nobility are to be seen by strangers, only in the ab- 
sence of their proprietors ; and, in the present in- 
stance, the owner had been some time absent, at 
some one of his residences in the country. Ac- 
cordingly, the Americans were introduced into the 
house ; and, in the course of their perambulation of 
the premises and inspection of library and paintings, 
were conducted to an apartment, containing only two 
pictures. One of these every American would at 
once recognize, as the unmistakable portrait of the 
Father of his Country ; the other proved to be the 
counterfeit presentment of a personage, then scarcely 



112 MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 

less known to fame ; and was, in fact, the portrait of 
Warren Hastings, for many years, the Governor-gen- 
eral of India. It so happened, however, that, during 
their visit, Lord Lansdowne unexpectedly returned to 
town, and, understanding that there were strangers 
examining the house, courteously proceeded to the 
room, where our young friends were engaged ; and 
entering into conversation with them, informed them, 
that he appropriated this privileged apartment to 
these two pictures alone, as being the portraits of the 
two greatest men he had ever known. 

The Americans said nothing ; and, as that was not 
the age of "free discussion," felt, perhaps, that it 
might be uncivil to call in question even the most 
eccentric fancies of a gentleman, in his own house. 
But the saying sank deep into their memory ; and 
when one of the parties, some time since, gave me 
the particulars of the adventure, it struck my mind, 
I must confess, as a thing of peculiar incongruity. 
Washington and Warren Hastings! The savior of 
his country — and the desolator of an oppressed and 
ruined people ! This one, the living spirit of all that 
is known as truth, wisdom, honor, moderation and 
integrity in man, — that one, the cruel and unjust 
tool of a grasping and insatiable avarice ! This man, 
at the close of all his patient and heroic toils, in the 
great struggle, to which his own prudence and brave 
policy, by the blessing of Heaven, had brought sue- 



MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 113 

cess, — claiming no reward of his country, and ac- 
cepting only the bare repayment of so much, as he 
had expended, from his own fortune, in her service ; 
the other, rioting upon extorted bribes, and return- 
ing from the land, which his injustice had made 
wretched, to receive, in charity, at last, the means of 
sustaining his prolonged existence, from the coffers 
which had been so often replenished by his own wick- 
edness ! The one, retiring from the cares of public 
life, amidst the grateful tears of a reluctant people, 
followed by the admiration of the world and secure 
of the benedictions of posterity ; the other, disgrace- 
fully recalled from the distant world, where his 
crimes had made the name of Englishman a scourge 
and a dread ; met, upon his native shore, by the exe- 
crations of the populace and the stern rebuke of the 
highest, the brightest and the purest spirits of his 
country's glorious days ; impeached by the Commons 
of England, in the name of the people whom he had 
wronged, and for the sake of the humanity which he 
had outraged ; and after a trial, enduring for a longer 
series of years than that, within which his compar 
triot of Lansdowne-House had achieved the liber- 
ties of the republic, — finally escaping, amidst the ter- 
giversations of political factions, the wearisomeness of 
protracted justice, and the influence of a spirit, which 
submitted to prefer interest to honor — and could not 
well preserve its consistency by condemning the cul- 
10* 



114 MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 

prit, after it had accepted and appropriated his 
bribe. 

The anecdote, which I have just detailed, was 
brought forcibly to my recollection, in reading, some 
time since, the brilliant and seductive article of Mr. 
Macaulay, upon the character and administration of 
Hastings. The subject, considered in its connections, 
is one of vast importance, inasmuch as it relates to 
the commencement and extension of British power in 
Asia, and the influence of this domination upon the 
interests, the morals and the happiness of the world. 
But the Essay of Mr. Macaulay, with all - its elaborate 
splendor of diction and graphic profusion of illustra- 
tion, did not satisfy my judgment, for precisely the 
same reason, that the juxtaposition of the portraits of 
Washington and Hastings did not coincide with the 
preconceptions of the young Americans at Lansdowne- 
House. To estimate the character of an individual, 
by setting his vices in parallel with his abilities and 
their unscrupulous exercise for the acquisition of do- 
minion and riches, for himself or others, may indeed 
tend to dazzle and bewilder the imagination. But 
when we come to compare such a man with him, who 
has devoted his powers to the unquestionable benefit 
of his race, or, which is better, to try him by the un- 
erring standard of truth and justice itself, the fallacy 
becomes apparent to the most cursory apprehension. 
It cannot be denied, that the world is not too apt to 



MR, MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 115 

make the necessary and reasonable distinction be- 
tween the rises of great ability, accordingly as it is 
well or ill employed ; or to remember that the sole 
legitimate purpose, as well as the only merit of 
knowledge, consists in the enlargement of virtue ; and 
if we conld but escape subjection to that inverse rule 
of morals, by which the world calls " good evil and 
evil good," we might demand, that the highest intel- 
lect should be but the measure and standard of the 
most consummate goodness. In the Court of Heav- 
en, we know that the perversion of talents is to be 
regarded criminal, in proportion to their amount and 
superiority. At the tribunal of worldly judgment, 
the very possession of distinguished powers is too 
often looked upon as a sufficient palliation for their 
abuse. 

I shall not allege, that the Essay of Mr. Macaulay 
is in any sense a panegyric. He professes, indeed, 
to assume the attitude of an impartial judge. He 
neither imitates the miserable adulation of Mr. Gleig, 
whose Biography of Hastings he reviews ; nor is he 
stirred up to the just severity, honestly exhibited by 
Mill, in his History of British India. He pretends to 
deprecate, on the one hand, any deference to that 
caprice of popular favor, which induced the House of 
Commons in 1813, to rise up in honor of a man, who, 
twenty-seven years before, had escaped the punish- 
ment of his crimes, through the technicalities of the 



116 MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 

law ; and, on the other, Mr. Burke's spirit of indig- 
nant denunciation, which compelled Hastings himself 
to acknowledge, at the close of one of those terrible 
. philippics, that he " felt himself to be the most guilty 
man alive," — "until," he continued, "he appealed 
to his conscience and was reassured." But besides 
the advancement of occasional theories in morals, 
adapted, it is to be feared, rather to the vitiated taste 
of the times, than to the requirements of the eternal 
rule of right, there is a dazzling series of picturesque 
descriptions, and a display of gorgeous scenery, more 
like the allurements of romance, than homely and 
natural truth, and all so clothed in a veil of enchant- 
ing language, that it is difficult to separate the char- 
acter of the freebooter from his successes and to re- 
member, as we are led to the conclusion, that it is, 
after all, like dragging a criminal, in a triumphal car 
to the place of his execution, and crowning with fruit- 
less laurels the head, which, the next moment, is to 
find its brotherhood with the clod. 

And this, in truth, is the chief subject of complaint 
against Mr. Macaulay. Not, that he does not rebuke 
with sufficient severity some of those instances of the 
conduct of Hastings, which, indeed, could admit of 
no defence ; nor, that he leaves entirely out of his 
account many of the more flagrant examples of cruel 
and rapacious injustice, which signalized his adminis- 
tration ; but that he covers up truth with sophistical 



MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 117 

extenuation ; that he palliates infamy by the enforce- 
ments of expediency ; that he admits his hero to have 
resolved deliberately upon the accomplishment of evil 
purposes, and then urges the necessity of evil means, 
in order to secure success ; that, while he leads the 
careful reader almost to apprehend some deficiency 
in the moral perceptions of the brilliant essayist, he 
leaves the less discriminating, at least in doubt, wheth- 
er Hastings, though unquestionably guilty of grave 
offences, was not, on the whole, a persecuted and in- 
jured man; that he seems to justify a conclusion, 
that the world has wasted much declamation, for 
some thousands of years, against mercenary and am- 
bitious conquest; and bewilders us onwards to the 
treacherous inference, that even he may be deserving 
of admiration, if not respect, whose only claim to 
merit, upon his own showing, consisted in extending 
British dominion over a country, to which she had 
not the shadow of a right, and in transmitting to his 
employers immense treasures, obtained constantly by 
means, for which even Hastings himself does not pre- 
tend to set up any defence. 

It is no part of my purpose, to enter upon any de- 
tailed account of this remarkable man. A dreaming 
and romantic boy, at his native village of Daylesford, 
there mingled with his earliest reflections the resolu- 
tion to recover those paternal possessions, with which 
his impoverished ancestors had been compelled to 



118 MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 

part ; and this idea, which he never lost sight of, until 
its final realization, together with the hope of reviving 
an extinguished family title, afford a plausible key to 
much of his subsequent career. At a very early age 
he was admitted to the civil service of the Bast India 
Company. By the exertion of his extraordinary en- 
dowments and the fortunate concurrence of events, he 
was soon raised to a post of great trust and emolu- 
ment. One of the earliest incidents in his political 
life, not even alluded to by Mr. Macaulay, was his 
intervention, as interpreter, in an infamous plot, con- 
trived between some of the English agents and cer- 
tain native functionaries, for the deposition of one 
prince and the assassination of another. As all the 
revolutions, which were brought about in India, were 
promoted for the acquisition of money, — besides the 
incidental benefit to the parties concerned, the Com- 
pany eventually realized between £200,000 and 
£300,000 by this creditable transaction. When, 
some time afterwards, a report of its character was 
brought to the knowledge of the Directors in London, 
they transmitted orders to the Council for its investi- 
gation. This board consisted of three individuals, of 
whom Hastings was one. His connection with the 
business seemed to disqualify him for the position of 
a judge. In order to remove this impediment, Mr. 
Hastings prepared a statement, in which he alleged, 
that he did not recollect acting as interpreter, and 



MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 119 

that he thought he should remember it, if he had, in 
fact, been present in that capacity. Nor can we, on 
our part, doubt, that he must easily have recalled the 
particulars of transactions so important, occurring 
within the previous two or three years. To corrobo- 
rate the account given by Hastings, another of the 
accomplices, who, while the transaction was fresh, 
had made affidavit that Hastings did so act, now 
recalled his former statement, and affirmed that he 
conceived he must have been mistaken, in his original 
deposition, and believed, that he himself "was in reality 
the interpreter on the occasion in question. The 
Council, thus conveniently composed, constituted the 
tribunal, which was to judge of the weight of the pre- 
cious testimony submitted for the mutual exculpa- 
tion. In fact, the recollections of the whole party 
became finally extremely indistinct, and they thus 
proceeded, with clear judgment, to the honorable 
acquittal of all persons concerned ! 

The period elapsing, between the retirement of 
Clive and the accession of Hastings to the Presidency 
of Bengal, exhibited that country in an aspect, which 
had never before been witnessed, on such a scale, in 
the history of the world. There was literally nothing 
like civil government throughout its territories. The 
native Prince, who still retained his title and every 
show of outward respect, possessed not even the 
slightest shadow of authority. The English power, 



120 MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 

which, commencing with the establishment of an in- 
significant trading-fort and factory, at Calcutta, had 
seized, on what might, perhaps, be considered some 
reasonable pretext, to secure the mastery of the pro- 
vince, still submitted to the style of ' vassals of the 
throne of Delhi ;' and the Council, which represented 
the Company at home, employed its energies almost 
entirely upon negotiations for the benefit and further- 
ance of trade. With no constitution, therefore, or 
form of civil government, or system of recognized 
law ; indeed, without any responsible political head, 
since the supreme authority, which existed at the 
council-board, was altogether devoted to the require- 
ments of mercantile affairs^ rather than to the admin- 
istration of justice, it is not strange that unheard-of 
abuses and excesses ravaged and desolated the land. 
The natives dared not resist the most unwarrantable 
assumptions. Every Englishman, in fact, did not 
what was right, but what seemed most profitable in 
his own eyes. Trade, instead of a just and honorable 
commerce, for the mutual benefit, became a system of 
thorough and unscrupulous pillage. And, as no 
foreigner resided in India, except for the purpose of 
amassing a fortune, the infamous rapidity, with which 
this object could be effected, rather than any consider- 
ation of the just means, was the ruling principle of 
all classes of Europeans, throughout this unhappy 
land. It is matter of eternal and indelible disgrace 



MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 121 

to the English name, that, for a series of fifteen years, 
from 1756, the commencement of British domination 
in Asia, to the accession of Hastings, in 1771, such 
remained the true condition of this wretched and dis- 
tracted country. The issue of that revolution, which 
had secured the rights of conquest to an enlightened 
and Christian nation, imposed upon it equally the 
duties of moral government and the establishment of 
civil polity. And if the very peculiarities of this sin- 
gular people, and those deep-rooted prejudices, which, 
deducing their origin in some remote period of undis- 
covered antiquity, had preserved their personal habits 
and their social organization the same, under every 
influx of foreign invasion and through successive 
internal revolutions, in spite of Mussulman bigotry 
and the intermixture of a hundred races, in defiance 
alike of the Mahometan sword and the more peaceful 
weapons of the Christian church militant ; if these 
things rendered them less likely to be readily influ- 
enced even by the highest exemplification of princi- 
ples, which our religion professes as its plainest duties, 
— one thing is certain, they had become dependent on 
their invaders, and were entitled to protection in the 
common rights, and to security for the ordinary privi- 
leges of humanity. Almost all conquerors, in every 
stage of society, appear to have had some compunc- 
tions upon this subject. They have established law, 
at least for the maintenance of their own authority, 
11 



122 MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 






if not for the direct benefit of those whom they have 
subdued. The very Tamerlane himself, who, three 
hundred and fifty years before, had founded on con- 
quest in India that great Mogul Empire, the legal do- 
minion of which the English in Bengal acknowledged, 
at least, in name, — had endeavored, in some measure, 
to cultivate, in peace, those principles of public and 
private conduct, without which peace itself never can 
be desirable. And of the volume, called the " In- 
stitutions of Tamerlane," which he left, as a sacred 
legacy to his posterity, Mr. Burke declares, that he 
believes " there is not a book in the world, which con- 
tains nobler, more just, more manly, more pious prin- 
ciples of government." Abused and perverted it had 
undoubtedly been ; but unfortunately we need not 
travel so far, as to India within the Ganges, for exam- 
ples of violated constitutions and outraged laws. At 
all events, the English were bound to provide their 
subjects, with a system as salutary, as that which they 
had broken in pieces. And if they had indeed done 
so, the announcement of Christian doctrine might 
have been much more efficacious, than after every 
prejudice had been enlisted, every hostile feeling 
engendered, and the manners of the people had be- 
come tenfold more corrupted, under every experience 
of plunder and cruel and lawless violence. 

It was at this period of disorder and insecurity, 
that so many of those enormous fortunes were 



MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 128 

amassed, which made a proverb of the titles, as well 
as transferred the wealth of the native princes, to 
the crowds of Englishmen in India ; that so many 
nabobs, so called, returned home, with consciences 
oftentimes as shattered as their constitutions, to linger 
out their days, amidst those spoils of extortion, which 
they had no longer the power to enjoy ; and those 
magnificent dreams of oriental riches were indeed 
realized, which overloaded a few, at the expense of 
miserable millions of mankind. It was in the course 
of these and a few succeeding years, that the immense 
amount of two hundred millions of dollars was 
transported from the one country to the other ; and 
that England, before this time, if not a poor, yet far 
from being a wealthy country, but maintaining its 
respectability with its old honest independence, and 
for the most part homely and virtuous, became daz- 
zled with this sudden influx of riches and its easy 
means of acquisition ; yielded to the corrupt influence 
of a general profusion, to which its people had not 
been accustomed ; and, losing much principle and 
self-respect, in the countenance not withheld, if not 
cordially extended to the returning nabobs, the pub- 
lic mind became at length, more or less vitiated ; nor 
is it matter of vain speculation, to infer, that the 
nation is, at this day, struggling in consequence, 
under many of the just and unavoidable evils, which 
result from ill-gotten wealth. 



124 MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 

But if such was the condition of India, at the time 
of the elevation of Hastings to the Presidency of 
Bengal, certainly never was a fairer field displayed, 
for the exercise of his splendid abilities, if they had 
been directed and controlled by the nobler qualities 
of human nature. A wise and just administration of 
his government was demanded of him, no less by 
what was due to the character of England, than by 
the sufferings of the people of Hindostan. The cries, 
which so long had appealed to the mercies of the 
ever-opening heavens ; the evils, which seem some- 
times to be permitted, in order to test our use or 
abuse of the faculties with which we are endowed, — 
had, at length, extorted counsels and orders from the 
Directors, for the reformation of what was indeed a 
scene of almost unmitigated horrors. Instead of this, 
his administration was but one long conflict with the 
better spirit of his colleagues in the government ; one 
continued act of disobedience to the directions, if not 
to the wishes of his employers at home. 

Mr. Macaulay crowns his final encomium of the 
career of Hastings, with the assertion that he " found- 
ed a polity." It would be a more just judgment, to 
aver, that he extended a usurpation. The same 
conduct of affairs, which would have exposed a 
private citizen to the general execration of man- 
kind, exhibited here on an enlarged scale, carried 
forward with unscrupulous boldness and terminating 



MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 125 

in complete success, — if it has not secured Hastings 
from the obloquy of history, has given his name a 
distinguished place, upon that doubtful file, at which 
many well-disposed persons are willing to look, with 
a certain indefinite feeling of wonder and admira- 
tion. According to the principles of worldly judg- 
ment, in its most worldly sense, Hastings no doubt 
acted wisely, in the course, which he determined to 
pursue. He knew well, that men do not, as a gen- 
eral rule, more strictly enquire into the moral char- 
acter of an agent, who never fails to furnish them 
with all that they demand, than Aladdin, in the 
Arabian Nights, thought of questioning the legal 
authority of the Genius of the Lamp ; and he con- 
ceived that he could make no reply so satisfactory, 
to the reiterated complaints from home, on the sub- 
ject of his injustice and extortion, as the liberal 
remittance of unquestionable lacs of rupees. Like 
the Irish absentee landlord, who commands his factor 
not to rack-rent his tenants, but yet insists on his 
immediate occasion for a thousand pounds, — the 
Board of Directors filled their letters to the Governor- 
general, with various weighty resolutions of disappro- 
bation, and issued voluminous homilies, full of the 
most virtuous and exemplary remonstrance ; but never 
failed to insinuate, that the necessities of the Company 
imperatively demanded a fresh supply of the one 

indispensable commodity ! 
11* 



126 MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 

Mr. Macaulay conceives Hastings to have been 
thus placed in a situation of great difficulty. In the 
embarrassed condition of the country which he gov- 
erned, he had no present means of raising money, 
except by robbery, and the argument is, that it was, 
therefore, necessary for him to turn buccaneer. But 
his position, in fact, required him to make his elec- 
tion, between his true duty to the trusts reposed 
in him, on both sides of the great ocean, which 
separated the dependant from his masters, controlled 
by his duty to himself, and to a higher Power, of 
whom he seems never to have thought, — and the 
commission of great crimes. " He had no choice 
left him," observes Mr. Macaulay, " except to commit 
great wrongs, or to resign all his hopes of fortune 
and distinction." To a really honest mind there 
would, of course, be no difficulty in making the elec- 
tion. To a mind, constituted like that of Hastings, 
there was equally no difficulty, for he evidently never 
entertained a scruple upon the subject. His principle 
of action is well laid down by Mr. Macaulay himself. 
" He seems to have held it a fundamental proposition, 
which could not be disputed, that when he had not as 
many lacs of rupees as the public service required, he 
was to take them from any body who had." And 
again — " The rules of justice, the sentiments of 
humanity, the plighted faith of treaties, were in his 
view as nothing, when opposed to the immediate in- 



MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 127 

terests of the state." But even allowing that the 
requirements of public necessity excuse, if they do 
not justify much occasional wrong, the heartless 
depravity of such principles and practices does not 
admit of the extenuation thus sophistically suggested ; 
for here was no " public service," except that created 
to gratify the grasping avarice of Hastings and his 
employers, and the necessities of the Company itself 
constituted the only " interests of the state." And it 
would be, indeed, difficult, to recall many distin- 
guished personages, out of Bulwer's novels, who 
quite come up to the deformity of character, thus 
incidentally developed ! Cortez we might instance, 
perhaps, with some more show of apology ; Pizarro, it 
would be safe to judge a better man, for though he 
too robbed and murdered, yet he regarded the hea- 
thenish Peruvians, much as the prophet of old looked 
upon Agag and the company of Amalek ; and if he 
destroyed cities to-day, he founded and built up others 
to-morrow. 

The passages I have quoted will serve to justify 
Mr. Macaulay, in an occasional moral reflection upon 
what he gently styles the " faults" of the Governor- 
general, almost concealed, as they are, in the flowery 
emblazonment of his career, and neutralized by the 
implied approbation of his eventful life. But in a 
government, conducted upon motives like those set 
forth, the excesses and barbarities, by which it was 



128 MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 

distinguished, would follow as the necessary and un- 
avoidable consequence. It is not strange that these 
things roused the eventual indignation of English 
society, which is something, by the way, never to be 
confounded, in that country, more than in our own, 
with the policy of the government, or the acts of 
public bodies ; nor is it singular, that eventually the 
offender should have been called to answer for his 
crimes, while there was anything resembling the 
common attributes of morality, justice or religion 
remaining in the world. 

I am willing to make every reasonable allowance 
for the peculiar attitude and relations of the public 
accusers of Hastings and their principal leader, Mr. 
Burke ; and however differences may exist, as to 
some of Mr. Burke's political speculations, in the 
estimation of friend and foe alike, few men have ever 
lived of more unblemished purity of purpose and 
more perfect integrity of mind and heart. His lan- 
guage upon opening the charges against Hastings is 
exceedingly strong. "The crimes," he says upon 
the occasion alluded to, " which we charge in these 
articles are not lapses, defects, errors of common 
human frailty, which, as we know and feel, we can 
allow for. We charge this offender with no crimes, 
that have not arisen from passions, which it is crimi- 
nal to harbor ; with no offences, that have not their 
root in avarice, rapacity, pride, insolence^ ferocity, 



MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 129 



treachery, cruelty, malignity of temper ; in short, in 
nothing that does not argue a total extinction of all 
moral principle ; that does not manifest an inveterate 
blackness of heart, dyed in grain with malice, viti- 
ated, corrupted, gangrened to the very core. If we 
do not plant his crimes in those vices, which the 
breast of man is made to abhor, and the spirit of all 
laws, human and divine, to interdict, we desire no 
longer to be heard on this occasion. * * * We 
urge no crimes that were not crimes of forethought. 
We charge him with nothing, that he did not commit 
upon deliberation ; that he did not commit against 
advice, supplication and remonstrance ; that he did 
not commit against the direct command of lawful 
authority ; that he did not commit after reproof and 
reprimand ; the reproof and reprimand of those, who 
are authorized by the laws to reprove and reprimand 
him. * * * He was fourteen years at the head 
of that service, and there is not an instance, no, not 
one single instance, in which he endeavored to detect 
corruption, or that he ever, in any one single in- 
stance, attempted to punish it ; but the whole service, 
with that whole mass of enormity which he attributes 
to it, slept as it were at once under his terror and his 
protection ; under his protection, if they did not dare 
to move against him ; under his terror, from his 
power to pluck out individuals and make a public 



130 MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS* 

example of them, whenever lie saw fit. And there- 
fore, that service, under his guidance and influence, 
was even beyond what its own nature disposed it to, 
a service of confederacy, a service of connivance, a 
service composed of various systems of guilt, of which 
Mr. Hastings was the head and protector." 

It is not often that the most austere and ferocious 
tyrant is more forcibly portrayed. And if we can 
indeed conceive of a man totally deficient in the 
common sentiments of justice and humanity, or to- 
tally averse to their application, we may form some 
judgment of the probable course and current of 
events, likely to distinguish his administration. It is 
scarcely possible, without entering more minutely 
into the subject than I intend, even to allude intelli- 
gibly to intricate affairs like these, often dependent, 
for their full understanding, upon various circum- 
stantial details and explanations. It would be in 
vain to emulate the highly-wrought illustrations of 
the Essay of Mr. Macaulay. But I shall endeavor 
to present what I have thought it important to con- 
sider, with all reasonable clearness to your good 
sense and judgment. 

I have already remarked, that Hastings found the 
finances of Bengal in a state of considerable embar- 
rassment. In order to meet this exigency, he did 
not attempt to stem the current of abuses, nor, as is 
the fashion of modern legislators, to call into play the 



MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 131 

invaluable sendees of an able and judicious commit- 
tee of retrenchment. But wisely reflecting that, since 
all Englishmen in India were there, for the purpose 
of making money, by fair means or foul, it would be 
a pity to disturb them in so laudable a pursuit, he 
left them altogether to their own devices, and looked 
about him, on his part, for native princes of reputed 
riches, to insult, and upon any show of displeasure, 
to plunder without mercy or compunction. In fact, 
nothing could be more simple and efficacious, than 
the process by which Hastings raised the necessary 
remittances. It must be remembered, that, in the 
earlier part of his administration, he was only the 
governor of Bengal, which province was held by the 
East India Company solely for the purposes of com- 
merce. The Empire of Hindostan, of which Ben- 
gal made a portion, consisted of a great number of 
principalities, more or less independent, although 
nominally owning subjection to the descendant of 
Tamerlane at Delhi. The Empire had become thor- 
oughly disorganized, after the successful invasion of 
the great Persian conqueror, Nadir Shah, in the early 
part of the eighteenth century. The various viceroys 
or princes were generally at dissension amongst them- 
selves ; and many of them were ambitious of extend- 
ing their territories and power. Some of these 
dignitaries had accumulated vast treasures, which 
Hastings wanted ; he, on the other hand, had troops 



132 MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 

at his command, against whose discipline the bravest 
native forces were utterly unable to contend. Noth- 
ing could be more obvious, therefore, than the course 
of conduct to be pursued. Whenever the directors 
at home suggested the propriety of further remit- 
tances, Hastings, at once, proceeded to take posses- 
sion of a province. It sometimes happened, that he 
was able to effect an amicable arrangement with 
some one of the superior officers of the reigning 
prince, and rewarded his treachery by installing him 
in the place of his deposed master, at a stipulated 
and always an extremely remunerative price. In 
case an arrangement of this kind could not be con- 
veniently made, he disposed of the stolen province, 
by sale, to the nearest potentate, who was willing to 
become the purchaser. By means like these, he was 
able, in less than two years, to add something like 
£700,000 to the annual revenue of " The Honorable, 
the Company of Merchants, trading to the East 
Indies," besides sending home about £1,000,000, in 
ready money. 

The sad and painful history of the unfortunate 
Princesses of Oude, the two aged and noble women, 
out of whose protracted sufferings he at length wrung 
£1,200,000, by a course of absolutely unparalleled 
barbarities, — at least since the days of Montezuma 
and Guatemozin, — not only without pretence, but 
against every emotion which human nature loves, — 



MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 133 

has long prompted the indignant horror of those, who 
are acquainted with the history of the concluding 
years of the last century. It is difficult to imagine, 
how a mind, actuated by much reverence for the 
principles of common honesty, can entertain any dif- 
ferent sentiment in regard to other similar instances of 
atrocity and oppression ; such as the Rohilla war, the 
execution of the Brahmin Nuncomar, the sack of 
Dinagepore, the infamous exactions at Benares, and 
innumerable other acts of treachery and violence, 
some of which are alluded to, while others do not 
seem even to have attracted the attention of Mr. 
Macaulay. It would make the heart too sick, to 
undertake the recital, or to endure the relation of 
things, which, in their enormity and extent, surpass 
all that history or fable have recorded, at least 
amongst the fruits of peace, if they are not equally 
eminent above all the more ordinary ferocities of 
war. And the lapse of more than seventy years, and 
the gradual influence of a generally more humane 
and improving legislation, have not been able to ef- 
face them from the memory of the people of India. 
If it were possible to conceive of an anomaly so 
strange and unheard of, as a demon of peace itself, — 
only not the genius of War, because all the power, 
all the cruelty and all the desire to prey upon the 
defenceless, were rioting at its single heart, — some 
idea may be formed of the condition of this unhappy 
12 



134 MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 

land, under the terrible visitation of its destroyer. 
Hastings himself and many after him have set up the 
plea, that the people of Hindostan were but a nation, 
whom nature and habit had fitted only for slaves ; 
and that they would endure no treatment but that, to 
which a treacherous slave should be subjected by a 
rigorous master. But, without staying to inquire 
into the duties, which we may conclude to devolve 
upon the humane and Christian superior, to whom 
Providence intrusts the welfare of the dependant, — 
the plea itself is untenable, for the reason that it is 
not true. That the standard of general morals was 
not higher in Hindostan, than in many other semi- 
barbarous countries, we may well believe. That this 
standard had become depreciated, in proportion as 
you approached the sea-coast, where foreigners chiefly 
congregated, we have also some reason for believing 
to be quite credible. The natives had been, for a long 
time, subjected to the evils of anarchy, and they had 
not gained any improvement by their intercourse 
with Europeans. There are certain offences which a 
Hindoo never forgives, chiefly relating to his caste 
and his personal dignity ; as is the case, in the latter 
particular, at least, with every unchristianized people. 
If they have strong faults of character, they are no 
less distinguished by many kinds of virtue, which it 
were to be wished were more common and more 
valued in Europe and America. No doubt, they are 



MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 135 

acute, intelligent and crafty. In the encounter of 
wits, the English often had to submit to be foiled in 
their own game of plunder. Resenting such suc- 
cesses, as injuries, therefore, they looked with suspicion 
upon all those more prominent Indian qualities ; and 
they were especially provoked at any reluctance (un- 
pardonable in slaves), to aid their generous design of 
transferring the gold and the silver, the jewels, the 
ivory, the silks and the spices, — in truth, the riches of 
the Indies, — to the "fast-anchored isle of the ocean ;" 
and, for all these reasons, the invaders contrived to 
fix upon the subjected a very discreditable name. 

In order to show, that I do not make allegations 
without proof, I quote, as to the character of, at least, 
a portion of the inhabitants of Bengal, a few words 
from a book, written by a predecessor of Hastings in 
the Presidency, while the English domination was 
yet insecure ; and it is of the more authority, because 
the object of the author was to persuade to a compli- 
ance with his scheme, for the subversion of the Hindu 
government. 

" In truth," says this author, Mr. Holwell, " it 
would be almost cruelty to molest this happy people ; 
for in this district are the only vestiges of the beauty, 
purity, piety, regularity, equity and strictness of the 
ancient Hindostan government. Here, the property, 
as well as the liberty of the people are inviolate. 
Here, no robberies are heard of, either public or pri- 



136 MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 






vate. The traveller, either with or without merchan- 
dise, becomes the immediate care of the government, 
which allots him guards, without any expense, to con- 
duct him from stage to stage ; and these are account- 
able for the safety of his person and effects. At the 
end of the first stage, he is delivered over, with cer- 
tain benevolent formalities, to the guards of the next, 
who, after interrogating him, as to the usage he has 
received, in his journey, dismiss the first guard with 
a written certificate of their behavior, and a receipt 
for the traveller and his effects ; which certificate and 
receipt are returnable to the commanding officer of 
the first stage, who registers the same and regularly 
reports it to the Rajah. In this way, the traveller is 
passed through the country." And there is much 
more of the same tenor. 

Such also, according to the very highest authority, 
was the real condition of the people and government 
of Benares ; which city was made by Hastings a scene 
of injustice and extortion, so utterly indefensible, that 
Mr. Pitt himself, during the progress of the impeach- 
ment, — even after the administration of which he was 
leader had determined to sustain Hastings, — voted 
with the opposition as to part of the charges, declar- 
ing to Mr. Wilberforce, that his conscience would not 
let him hold out any longer. In the insecure state of 
the governments of India, the Rajah of this city and 
its dependencies paid a fixed tribute to the English 






MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 187 

authorities for their protection. It is admitted, on all 
hands, that the tribute was strictly and honorably 
paid ; but the protection proved to be, in the end, 
such as lambs receive from wolves. The character of 
this great and magnificent city was somewhat pecul- 
iar. It was regarded with religious reverence, through- 
out all Hindostan. It was filled with schools and 
colleges and temples of worship. It was constantly 
crowded with millions of those, who, in that necessity 
of our nature, which induces certain manifestations 
of the human mind, in all countries, to aspire to a 
higher than ordinary tone of religious sentiment, pro- 
fessed, on their part, an uncommon sanctity of char- 
acter and deportment ; and thither the devout Hindoo 
retired to die. It was what Mecca is to the Mahom- 
etan ; and what Jerusalem was, to the Hebrew and 
Christian alike, during a more exalted if not a purer 
state of religious influence on society. The adminis- 
tration of the Prince had been mild ; he was univer- 
sally beloved and respected ; his territory was happy 
and prosperous. It is said, that nothing could be 
more striking, than the contrast it presented to the 
provinces, under the more immediate control of the 
English government. The tax, paid by the Rajah to 
the Governor-general, amounted to £50,000 a year, 
and all he requested in return was, that he and his 
subjects might be permitted to live in the enjoyment 
of their own peace and quiet, unmolested by the 
12* 



138 MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 

blessings or the curses of English domination. But 
the Rajah was reputed to be rich, and the temptation 
was altogether too strong for the unprincipled cupid- 
ity of Hastings. Although the precise total of his 
subsidy was fixed by solemn engagement, the Rajah 
submitted, with the best grace he could summon, to 
repeated additional exactions, until patience could 
endure it no longer. At length, well knowing the 
character of his extortioner, and in the hope of buy- 
ing a permanent peace, he offered Hastings a bribe of 
<£ 20,000, which the Governor-general accepted, and 
concealed, and then renewed his demands. Of the 
event of his unavailing negotiations, his fruitless 
efforts to avoid an open rupture, and the result of 
the unhappy Rajah's desperate but vain resistance, it 
is impossible to speak in terms of sufficient indigna- 
tion. The Hindoos, in general, are not warlike, and 
it may be supposed that the minds of a great propor- 
tion of the population, commorant in this city of 
religion, were bent upon peaceful contemplations. 
Still the people rallied in defence of the sovereign 
whom they loved and their own liberties ; but English 
arms and terror were at length triumphant. The 
wretched Prince was compelled to flee forever from 
his hereditary dominions. Benares was reduced to 
complete subjection to the invaders. The new Rajah, 
appointed by the Governor-general, was a mere pen- 
sioner upon the English bounty, and (the old conse- 









JtfR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 139 

quence) .£200,000, annual income, were added to the 
regular revenues of the Company. k The bribe, Hast- 
ings, after some time, paid over to the funds of the 
government. The transaction had, of course, become 
notorious, and, since it was impossible longer to con- 
ceal, it was equally impossible to retain it. The 
only account he ever gave of the matter was, that he 
always intended to give the Company credit for it, 
(although we may remark, they had no more title to 
it than himself) and, that he, no doubt, had reasons, 
at the time, for the concealment of its acceptance, but 
what those reasons were he had entirely forgotten ! 
Nor did he ever inform the public, that he had re- 
called them to his recollection. 

Some years before these occurrences, an event had 
taken place, which Mr. Burke, in the proceedings of 
impeachment, did not scruple to brand with the name 
of murder ; and for which, whether viewed in its 
legal or its moral aspect, it seems difficult to discover 
a softer name. A specification of charges had been 
filed at the Council-board, accusing Hastings, amongst 
other corrupt practices, of taking bribes, on various 
occasions and to large amounts, for the sale of offices 
mentioned in the statement. The paper was accom- 
panied by documentary evidence in proof; the sources 
of oral testimony were pointed out, and the accuser 
demanded to be personally heard before the Council, 
in support of his allegations. Nothing could seem a 



140 MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 

fairer or more open procedure than this. It has been 
averred by one certainly not friendly to Hastings, yet 
always considered most friendly to the truth, that 
there was not an office of justice, or other descrip- 
tion, in India, which he did not sell for his own bene- 
fit ; and the records of the Council would seem fully 
to sustain this assertion, in the judgment of his col- 
leagues. In their records, not only every matter of 
public business, but every expression of debate and 
opinion, were regularly entered, for the inspection of 
the directors at home. Two of his colleagues were 
certainly men of the very highest and most unsus- 
pected character ; and therefore, we may conclude, 
justly opposed to the course of his proceedings ; nor 
do I know anything unfavorable to the private repu- 
tation of the other member, Sir Philip Francis, except 
that he appears to have been violent and vindictive in 
his temper and general demeanor. At all events, 
they were all equally and openly hostile to the pur- 
poses of Hastings. This is one minute, entered at 
the open Council-board, by General Sir John Claver- 
ing : — " In the late proceedings it will appear, that 
there is no species of peculation, from which the 
Honorable Governor-general has thought it reasonable 
to abstain ;" and he further adds, in answer to a state- 
ment made by Hastings : — " This is only worthy of a 
man, who has disgraced himself in the eyes of every 
man of honor both in Asia and Europe." 



MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 141 

The Council, as might be concluded, were disposed 
to proceed in the investigation of the charges pre- 
ferred against him ; but to this Hastings utterly ob- 
jected, alleging the want of jurisdiction of the tribu- 
nal, and the baseness of the accuser himself. The 
character of this person Mr. Macaulay takes pains to 
display in the most unfavorable, and, we may believe, 
the most exaggerated aspect. He alleges all Hindoos 
to be base, and this person to have been the basest of 
his race. At all events, if truly described by Hastings 
and Mr. Macaulay, one would think the head of the 
government need have had little fear from such a 
source. The people of India, it is well known, are 
divided into many hereditary castes. At the head of 
the very highest and most sacred stood this person, the 
Brahmin Nuncomar ; a Hindoo of the Hindoos ; the 
high priest of a priesthood, claiming peculiar venera- 
tion for its order, besides his princely rank amongst 
the nobility of India. He was possessed of great 
wealth and immense influence, and the most extraor- 
dinary and commanding talents. He was artful, bold, 
intriguing and perhaps unprincipled. At some of the 
courts of Europe, he might have passed for a distin- 
guished statesman and patriot, and even from India 
he exerted no mean influence upon the deliberations 
of the court of directors in London. So far as I have 
been able to ascertain, he was elevated by many higher 
qualities, debased by no meaner vices, than are dis- 



142 MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 

played in the characters of Harley, Sunderland, Bute, 
Walpole, and other familiar names. It is certain, that 
he was a politician, eminent for one honorable and 
generous quality, an earnest of others, the most un- 
tiring fidelity to the person and interests of a master, 
whom Hastings had oppressed and ruined. That he 
was personally hostile to Hastings, therefore, there 
can be no doubt, as well on this, as on many other 
accounts. They had violently quarrelled, some years 
before ; and the Governor-general hated him besides, 
because he did not scruple to engage in thwarting 
many of his unwarrantable designs. 

The Council persisted in their investigation of the 
business, and finally adjudged the charges to be fully 
sustained. In the meantime, Hastings was unques- 
tionably in great danger, and he resolved upon a step 
so bold, that, like acts of boldness, oftentimes, it 
seems to have too much astounded others, both then 
and since, to permit of their forming an accurate 
judgment. By his confessed instigation, a charge of 
forgery, alleged to have been committed six years 
before, was got up against Nuncomar, upon which he 
was arrested and thrown into the common jail. In 
order to bring this question to a successful result, the 
consent of one other person was requisite. This was 
Sir Elijah Impey, the chief justice of the Supreme 
Court of Bengal ; a man so execrable, that he has 
never yet found a defender, for any part of his ad- 



MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 143 

ministration. He had been the school-fellow, and was 
now the friend of Hastings. To show at once their 
relations and the moral sense of both, it is only 
necessary to state, that, although Impey's salary was 
fixed by law at eight thousand pounds, — upon some 
difficulty occurring between them, Hastings had se- 
cured his connivance, by illegally doubling the 
amount, from funds within his own control. This 
was certainly a very convenient arrangement to effect 
with the judicial check imposed upon his own acts ; 
and the fact proved, that the Governor-general ever 
after found in Impey a most ready and serviceable 
instrument. It is said there is no difficulty in pro- 
curing testimony of any description in India. How- 
ever that may be, before this upright judge, with or 
without evidence, Nuncomar was tried, convicted and 
sentenced to death ; and, to the horror and consterna- 
tion of all Hindostan, the sentence was carried into 
speedy execution ! The impression of the scene upon 
the people of India, though no doubt exciting emo- 
tions far more intense, was like what might be the 
general dismay of England, if some tyrannical king, 
who had subverted the Constitution, should under- 
take, without law, and upon some personal dis- 
pleasure, to hang up the Archbishop of Canterbury. 
The prime minister of a prince, over whom the 
English certainly possessed no just control ; respected 
and respectable for his priestly functions ; universally 



144 MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 

known by reason both of his personal and political 
relations ; entitled to some humane consideration, on 
account of his venerable age ; he was shamefully 
dragged from his position as the public accuser of 
Hastings, arrested upon a charge generally believed 
to have been fictitious ; under a law then recently 
adapted to the supposed commercial necessities of 
England, and which never was intended to have, nor 
could have any legal operation in Asia ; for an 
offence, which we should regard it utterly unreasona- 
ble to make capital here, and which in India was 
considered as little criminal, as swearing to a false 
entry at the Custom-house in England, — this man, 
hemmed in by all the barriers and prejudices of rank, 
wealth, influence and religion, was publicly hanged 
at noon-day, amid the cries and tears of agonized mil- 
lions, the victim of arbitrary and vindictive power ! 

It was for applying the term "murder" to this 
transaction, that Mr. Burke was subjected to the cen- 
sure of the House of Commons. He received the an- 
nouncement of their disapprobation, with that proud 
submission, correspondent to the whole course of his 
dignified and manly life. The state of feeling, which 
could be excited to the passage of such a vote, against 
their own authorized and noble manager, for even the 
strongest expression of indignant feeling, in pursu- 
ance of the duty which they had themselves imposed, 
amazes us now. But the statute, constituting forgery 



MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 145 

a capital crime, had been accorded, not long before, 
to the demands of the commercial community. The 
offence, a short time previously, had become more than 
usually common. Much excited feeling, as well as 
excited interest, had been stirred into action. Public 
sentiment, on this subject, was in a state of extreme 
exaggeration. Dr. Dodd had been executed, as a 
signal example, under this law, notwithstanding the 
most strenuous efforts in his behalf, headed by Lord 
Chesterfield, himself the injured party. But the 
House does not appear to have reflected, that a mere 
compliance with the forms of law could not constitute a 
justification for the conduct of Hastings. Its members 
did not stay to consider, whether Nuncomar was inno- 
cent or guilty ; whether the forgery was a real or only 
a supposed case, or whether the offence, if proved, was 
punishable in Asia, as it was in England. Indeed, 
they did not investigate the question in its bearings 
at all. Mr. Burke had pronounced the execution of 
this man for alleged forgery, under all the extraordi- 
nary circumstances of the case, to be murder^ — and 
this was enough to rouse the passions and prejudices 
of the day. No such censure could inflict a stigma 
upon its object. Of its reflective bearing upon the 
intelligence and purity of the tribunal, a different view 
might be presented. The statute has subsequently 
been repealed; and it is now well-understood law, 
that no English statute shall have power over the 
13 



146 MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 

Colonies, unless by express provision to that effect. 
To exhibit, in a strong light, the unreasonableness of 
the feeling alluded to, and the evils of partial and 
temporary legislation, — for this same offence, for 
which Dr. Dodd was sent to the gallows, near the 
middle of the last century, Dr. Bailey, another Eng- 
lish clergyman, was transported to Botany Bay, within 
the past few years. 

It is conceded by Mr. Macaulay, that " Impey, sit- 
ting as a judge, put Nuncomar unjustly to death, in 
order to serve a political purpose." But he palliates 
the conduct of Hastings, upon two grounds. First, 
that he might well consider " any means legitimate 
to his end, which were pronounced such by the sages 
of the law ;" and secondly, that " Hastings cannot be 
blamed, for wishing to crush his accusers." They 
are both strange doctrines, and need but a brief reply. 
The " sages of the law," however, I may as well 
remark, were none other than Sir Elijah Impey, and 
him alone ; and though such " sages" certainly have 
occasionally sat upon the bench, yet, to the honor of 
humanity be it spoken, they have not often been co- 
temporaries ; but like other monsters, have appeared 
singly, and only at rare intervals, in the history of 
jurisprudence. The "political purpose," for which 
Impey put Nuncomar unjustly to death, was the safety 
of Hastings. The judge was his own creature, and 
the end was procured under his own influence and 



MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 147 

control, — and basely as Impey betrayed his trust, I 
have never yet learned that the tempted is more crim- 
inal than the tempter. Besides, the argument set 
forth, in palliation, is precisely the one employed by 
that ridiculous scarecrow, " Poor Peter Peebles," in 
the novel of " Red-gauntlet ;" who protested it uncom- 
monly hard, that he should be held amenable in con- 
science, for a most cruel and violent transaction of his 
more prosperous days, since all the proceedings in the 
premises were conducted by due course of law. That 
Hastings felt it for his interest " to crush his accuser," 
there can be no question. Men too often do such 
things, we know, and afterwards excuse themselves to 
their consciences, as well as they are able. Cromwell, 
under different circumstances, destroyed the adversa- 
ry, who stood between him and his designs ; and for 
this, of all his acts, the peace of Zimri was upon him 
to his dying day. But that a writer, professing a high 
standard of moral sentiment, should sit down delib- 
erately in his study, to justify such an act, on such 
grounds, impresses one as really something amazing. 
Revenge and injustice, I trust, are not yet defensible 
propensities. However our conduct may fall short of 
our professions, we yet cannot forbear to hold our- 
selves accountable to higher considerations, of what is 
due to ourselves, to others and to the world — 

Else wherefore breathe we in a Christian land ? 



148 MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 

If the accusations of Nuncomar were false, Hastings 
might well have defied them ; if true, the honor of 
the British character demanded, that he should no 
longer disgrace his high official station. And to pre- 
tend, that either ruler or citizen, either for policy or 
security, may murder an open accuser, in order to 
prevent an investigation into his crimes, is a doctrine 
as novel in theory, as it would be terribly pernicious 
in fact. 

But perhaps the crowning infamy of this man's 
misdeeds was the Bohilla war. It is the less neces- 
sary for me to enlarge on this topic, because in this 
instance, I believe, all are agreed to give "up both 
Hastings and his country to merited disgrace. But I 
do not feel myself at liberty to pass it entirely by ; 
especially as it may help to teach us, how some of 
those, who, in our day, are still reaping the pecu- 
niary results of this bad enterprise, might find food 
for decent reflection nearer home, before they wasted 
such a profusion of cheap philanthropy abroad. The 
Rohillas were, by far, the most interesting people of 
India ; brave, intelligent, cultivated, prosperous, hos- 
pitable and happy. They maintained their independ- 
ence by their own courage, and stood secure, under a 
wise, prudent and paternal government. Their coun- 
try is situated at the westernmost extremity of India, 
on the frontiers of Persia, separated from Hindostan 
itself by the river Indus ; and through it runs that 



MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 149 

vast range of lofty mountains, which, commencing on 
the Mediterranean, under the name of Taurus, passes, 
by various denominations and in various directions, 
through the whole extent of Asia, to the sea of 
Okotsk and the Pacific Ocean in the east. It is 
styled, by an old writer, the " Paradise of the Indies." 
Agriculture and the arts of peace flourished through- 
out its fertile valleys ; and the whole province pre- 
sented a living realization of those golden days, 
sometimes found gliding away, in the nooks and 
corners of the world, to prove that, in elder times, 
the patriarchal age was not a pastoral fable. With- 
out even the shadow of pretence, the Nabob of Oude, 
a tributary to the English power, and one of Hast- 
ings's intrusive governors, conceived the idea of an- 
nexing this rich territory to his dominions. He 
dared not make the attempt himself, for the Rohillas 
were warlike and to be feared ; but negotiated with 
Hastings for assistance. For the sum of £400,000, 
and payment of the expenses of the war, Hastings 
was base enough to lend him the British bayonets. 
The Rohillas made every effort to avoid a conflict 
with the English, with whom they had no quarrel ; 
but finding it impossible, put themselves upon their 
best defence. The particulars of the struggle are 
well worthy the closest attention. Be it enough for 
me to say, that, after a desperate and bloody contest, 
13* 



150 MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 

they were overpowered, and given up to the cruel 
mercies of the cowardly Nabob, who had fled while 
the combat was yet doubtful. His barbarities were 
so excessive, that the English officers sent to Hast- 
ings, imploring his interference ; but he coldly de- 
clined to afford either command or advice, there 
being, as he alleged, no stipulation in the contract, as 
to the mode of conducting the war. Indeed, the 
Eohillas seemed to be almost exterminated. But the 
consequences of evil deeds do not slumber in the 
dust. The iniquities of the fathers are still visited 
upon the children, to the third and fourth generation. 
A scattered remnant of this brave and spirited people 
again gathered upon their native fastnesses; and a 
portion of their descendants, at least, are the same 
Afghans, who, on the same soil, within the past six 
or seven years, have taught England some of the 
most mortifying lessons ever imposed upon her mili- 
tary pride. I shall not undertake here formally to 
defend the Afghans, or their mode of conducting hos- 
tilities. Much is to be excused to a brave people, 
battling for their own rights, upon their native soil, 
against a powerful foe ; especially when, as in the 
recent instance, the quarrel seems to have been as 
unreasonably fastened upon them, as in the old time. 
I suspect, if the truth were told, the invaders had 
little to boast about. One thing, however, is certain, 



MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 151 

that while the Afghans, on their part, exhibited to 
the captured ladies of the British officers a species of 
consideration and generosity, of which no memorials 
had been preserved for their instruction from the 
days of Sujah Dowlah, — the progress of the invading 
forces themselves emulated, if it did not surpass, every 
description of wanton cruelty, which defile the tra- 
ditionary annals of the old Rohilla war. 

I have endeavored, with a few necessary touches, 
to set forth, sufficiently for the purpose, those scenes, 
upon which Mr. Macaulay has employed all the gor- 
geous coloring of a vivid fancy and the utmost 
minuteness of pointed and picturesque detail. I 
should avoid undertaking to abridge, for recital, the 
heart-sickening atrocities of Dinagepore and its sister 
territories, for perhaps the same reason that they 
have been omitted by Mr. Macaulay. Besides the 
extreme horror of their revolting and most unnatural 
circumstances, upon the narration of this portion of the 
dreadful story Mr. Burke has expended all the luxu- 
riant resources of his great and fertile mind. It would 
be difficult to do this subject equal justice with the 
rest, in the same degree that the language, the sensi- 
bility, the imagination, the comprehensiveness of Mr. 
Burke, are superior to similar faculties and qualities 
in any writer, who should attempt to follow him. Be 
it enough to state, that, in a province comparatively 
poor, it was a systematic, long-continued and most 



152 MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 

cruel effort, by a relentless agent, under the appoint- 
ment and for the use of Hastings, — 



-To wring 



From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash, — 

executed with a dogged and perverse brutality, from 
which the very soul recoils almost incredulous, — and 
pursued, until every human pore, in the ill-fated ter- 
ritory, ran purple with the blood of agony ; until age 
and infancy, and the shame and sensitiveness of 
woman, shrank from the demons, who defiled the 
nature of their own species, and laid themselves 
down in the jungle of the tiger and the hyena, rather 
than any longer endure the more savage intimacy of 
man. Whoever desires to recur more particularly to 
the voluminous materials, upon this subject, will find 
them fearfully set forth, in the fifth and sixth days' 
speech of Mr. Burke, at the opening of the impeach- 
ment. 

These are but a few of the more marked and open 
exemplifications of the nature of British rule in India, 
during the last century. The infinite excesses and 
abuses, attributable to private corruption, it would be 
impossible to specify. The world has often wondered 
at the slow progress of the Christian religion in that 
region, and the apparently fruitless issue of mission- 
ary labors ; and it has spoken of the impenetrable 
prejudices of the Hindoos, which, like threefold 
armor, rendered them alike indifferent to the spir- 



MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 15S 

itual sword, whether wielded by Jesuit or Church- 
man ; whether the standard of the Cross was unfurled, 
upon the ramparts of Portuguese bigotry, or waved, 
where the doctrines, of which it was the sign, were 
enforced and illustrated by the more generous enthu- 
siasm of a Heber or a Schwartz. But the early 
preachers of Christianity and their immediate suc- 
cessors, through difficulties and dangers now un- 
known, were able to overcome the most inveterate 
and diverse prejudices. The apostolic staff, if not 
always available for personal defence, was still their 
rod of support and comfort, as they traversed the 
most distant and inhospitable corners of the world. 
Upon stony places, by the way-side and among thorns, 
they flung the scattered seed ; amidst the heritage of 
Ishmael, along the Idumean road, — and through this 
very India, into countries still more remote, where 
all traces of the specific worship have long since been 
swallowed up in the vortex of revolutions. As a 
curious and interesting exemplification of their prim- 
itive successes, the golden candlestick which they set 
up still glimmers, with a feeble light indeed, amidst 
the darkness of Ethiopia ; and from the wild ranges 
of Kurdistan a Nestorian Bishop was, not long since, 
in this land, manifesting something of the traditionary 
simplicity of the ancient and original Church. But 
the truth is, the Hindoos had no sort of reasonable 
motive presented for their conversion. They were 



154 MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 






able to distinguish, to compare and to see. If they 
heard or read that precept of the Gospel, which, prop- 
erly understood, lies at the very foundation of all 
Christian morality, which forbids us, as a chief good, 
to " lay up unto ourselves treasures upon earth," — 
they had only to look about them and observe their 
Christian exemplars absolutely intent upon nothing 
else, and to this end devoting the whole energies and 
spirit of their lives. We know that commercial inter- 
course, governed by honorable principles and dignified 
and alleviated by higher considerations, is a useful, a 
necessary and a noble pursuit. But, unfortunately, 
the admitted standard of worldly morality is obviously 
far beneath the perfection of the divine requisition ; 
and practices and principles pass more than current 
in the daily intercourse of society, which cannot be 
reconciled with the plainest obligations of duty. So 
thoroughly has the world settled the conditions of its 
law in opposition to the law of God, that the ordinary 
morals of business are too commonly anything but 
Christian morals. It is to be doubted, whether the 
moral conduct of Christendom compares favorably, in 
this respect, with that of many heathen nations. It 
is this fatal discrepancy between our professions and 
our practice, which unfits commerce to be the mis- 
sionary of religion. As well expect Shylock to be 
converted by Antonio — and to anticipate the propaga- 
tion of the Gospel amongst the simplest, much more 



MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 155 

amongst an intelligent and acute people, by means 
like these, would be as reasonable, as to look amidst 
the gray shadows, of the western horizon, on a wintry 
evening, for the matchless splendors of the summer 
dawn. If this be true, as a general rule, what success- 
ful progress could Christianity expect from a system 
like that of India, where all was fraud, all corrup- 
tion, all cruelty, treachery and plunder ? It resulted 
from these causes, no doubt, that the hopes of many 
were disappointed, because the influence and efforts 
of the English in China recently failed to exert any 
favorable tendency towards its civilization and con- 
version ; and will still fail, thus presented, though 
medicined with— 



poppy or mandragora, 

Or all the drowsy syrups of the world. 

Indeed the refinements of civilization itself, if it be 
not elevated and controlled by a more spiritual power, 
seem to me to be, in reality, worse than the worst of 
all barbarisms. I cannot assent to the soundness of 
a much admired philosophical sentiment of Mr. 
Burke, (and it is not often that I should undertake to 
find fault with his philosophy) that " vice loses half 
its evil, by losing all its grossness." Mr. Burke was 
misled, by looking at vice abstractly, instead of by 
examples. A painted harlot may be, perhaps, more 
attractive, but is she less dangerous than her equal, in 
rags? The war-club of the African savage, which 



156 MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 

can be seen and avoided, is better than the stiletto of 
the more polished, but no less inherent barbarian, 
which secretly penetrates to the life. The soul of the 
untutored Indian, upon our Western prairies, true to 
all it has felt and known, is infinitely superior to the 
corrupt heart, that beat amidst all the splendid and 
hollow magnificence of the Roman Court. It is pre- 
ferable that the mind should remain ignorant, and be 
so less potent for mischief, unless the heart becomes 
more and more purified, at every point of advance- 
ment in knowledge. It is impious to anticipate, that 
Heaven will favor the accomplishment of a good end, 
by evil means. Providence, no doubt, may interpose, 
to prevent the consequences of crime ; and leaving men 
equally responsible for their wicked purposes, may, in 
the exercise of supreme wisdom, benevolence and 
power, turn them all into an occasion of good. But 
this is the prerogative of God, and of Him alone ! 
So far as we have reason to know, Providence does 
not see fit to encourage any hope of cooperation in 
our actions, unless they are prompted by commend- 
able motives. For example and for punishment, it 
permits the natural return of those rewards, linked 
to our misdeeds by chains of inextricable adamant. 
Every principle of wisdom, every condition of moral 
necessity, requires the exercise of virtue for the 
attainment of virtuous ends. They afford us no war- 
rant for supposing, that anything but evil can come 



MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 157 

out of evil, or that eventual benefit can be derived 
from anything but that which is in itself good. Our 
duty is, to be wise, prudent, virtuous, according to 
the measure of our capacity and opportunity ; and we 
cannot safely say, that we will leave the consequences 
of our conduct to a higher Power, unless we have 
some good reason to be persuaded, that our motives 
and actions are in themselves right. 

Indeed, the very spirit and constitution of Chris- 
tianity forbid that we should expect such results, as 
have been anticipated, in India and China. Its first 
principle is Peace — how can you, therefore, propa- 
gate it with the sword ! The very element of its 
system is Love ; why should you, therefore, enforce it, 
with all the fiery malignity of hate ? 

I have left myself little space to remark upon the 
subsequent fortunes of Hastings. The conduct of 
affairs in India and the outrages of his administration 
had been, for several years, the subject of bitter dis- 
pute, at the Court of Directors and in the House of 
Commons. Although all things in England are more 
or less influenced by political bias, yet, in this instance, 
men, for a time, overleaped the barriers of faction. 
After an indignant vote of censure upon his conduct, 
in the House, it was resolved that he ought to be 
recalled. Soon after his return he was impeached ; 
and the world has long rung with the fame of the 
celebrated orations of Burke, Sheridan and Fox, 
14 



158 MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 






before that high tribunal, more august, it would seem, 
than competent, which sat in judgment upon his mis- 
deeds. It has often occurred to my own mind, that, 
if Hastings could have been brought to the bar, for 
any single one of his many outrages, the general 
sense of humanity and justice, which governs deliber- 
ative proceedings in Great Britain, would have easily 
insured his condemnation and exemplary punishment. 
But the very multitude of his offences seems to 
bewilder and fatigue the attention ; and the mind 
instinctively shrinks from believing, that any human 
being has been really defiled by such a complication 
of crimes. In him, it was a successive series of 
transactions, extending over a considerable space of 
time, and the traces of each separate enormity were 
obliterated, in his passive conscience, by the footsteps 
of its rapid successors ; to us it is presented, as one 
vast and confused accumulation of horrors, from 
which we recoil incredulous, and are only too happy 
to escape their scrutiny. 

For various reasons the trial was protracted, for a 
period of nearly eight years. In the mean time, vast 
changes had taken place. New political interests had 
sprung up. In regard to certain of them, several of 
the old opponents of Hastings had been irrevocably 
alienated from each other. Some of these had 
become connected with the ministry, which now took 
open sides with the Ex-Governor-general. Wherever 



MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 159 

art, influence, or money could avail with the press, 
the people or the parliament, they had been most 
zealously employed in his behalf. Public emotion 
had become very considerably allayed, and weariness 
had taken the place of indignation. Of the large 
body of peers, who sat in judgment at his impeach- 
ment, nearly one half had been themselves summoned 
to a higher tribunal. At the final judgment upon the 
charges, many of the Lords absented themselves ; and 
of about two hundred, then composing their body, 
only twenty-nine voted at all. Upon the vote of a 
majority of these he was eventually acquitted, in 
terms, by a singular sentence, which required him to 
pay more than .£70,000, as a part of the costs of pros- 
ecution. If he were innocent, this was an unjust ex- 
action, — if guilty, an infamous compromise. I am 
sorry to say that several of the most eminent in place, 
of the " spiritual Lords," voted for his acquittal, while 
amongst the " Lords temporal," who declared them- 
selves for his condemnation, is to be observed, together 
with the names of others less known to us, that of 
the late venerable Earl Fitzwilliam, ever after distin- 
guished for the unsullied integrity of his character, 
and the manly nobleness of his life. Whatever the 
offences of Hastings might have been, his administra- 
tion of Indian affairs had added immense sums to the 
public revenues and the private fortunes of England ; 
and the estates of the wealthy aristocracy, of both 



3.60 MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 

Houses, had been benefited, in many instances, direc 
or indirectly, by his means. His escape, therefore, 
was inevitable, for interest, not justice, held the un- 
equal scale. 

But the main immediate impediment to the rightful 
discovery of truth, upon this great occasion, was the 
determination, with which the Lords fettered them- 
selves, that their investigations should be governed by 
the rules of evidence practised upon in the English 
Courts of Law. If it were becoming to say so, the 
absurdity, as well as the hindrance unavoidably occa- 
sioned by this resolution, must have pressed upon 
every step of their deliberations. This system of 
rules, in its own place, is not only wise and salutary, 
but absolutely essential to the despatch of business. 
It is necessary, both for the promotion of public justice 
and the security of private right. These rules are 
the result of great experience and sagacity. In the 
natural impossibility of framing such as could prove 
of universal application, their observance may often 
tend to the advantage of the criminal, and may some- 
times save him from the just consequences of his 
crimes. But the enforcement of precision here is 
equally beneficial to the public, and the parties, inter- 
ested in the event of each particular proceeding. To 
the public, because, without it, business would become 
embarrassed, trials interminable, law much more 
expensive, justice much more uncertain. To the 



MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 161 

party, because it secures him the assistance of com- 
. petent persons, who have been led to investigate his 
rights and who know the strength of the defences, by 
which he is justly encircled and protected. At first 
sight, it may seem, for instance, a sort of refinement, 
to one who has not reflected on the subject, that a 
person, believed to have committed a capital offence, 
should be liable to be put on trial but once for his 
life. Yet when it is considered, that every man 
ought to have his offence clearly set before him, in 
order that he may meet it, if he can ; and that, for 
the same reason, he ought to be proved guilty of that 
specific offence, before he shall be convicted, — it will 
be seen, that, while the public and the accused are 
saved from the burthen of repeated prosecutions, the 
accuracy of the proceedings, in every particular 
instance, is made of the greatest interest and conse- 
quence to all. And experience approves the wisdom 
of the theory. And it might be matter of grave 
reflection to some of our innovating law-givers, that, 
in fact, the subversion of substantial justice and the 
insecurity of legal rights will be always in exact pro- 
portion to that looseness of practice, which they have 
been so anxious to introduce. 

But the matter, which we have been considering, 

was of a widely different nature. An Impeachment 

is an event of rare occurrence. Besides this, no 

instance had been known, in the experience of any of 

14* 



162 MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 

the parties engaged upon the occasion in question. 
The accused was one, by his position, constituted the 
vicegerent of a Power, by whom kings reign, — upon 
the broad principles of moral government, recognized 
and applicable, wherever the sun witnesses the beauty 
and excellence of his daily providence. The offences, 
with which he was charged, were crimes as well 
against the moral sentiments of mankind, as in 
defiance of the express provisions of the law. His 
accuser was the voice of humanity itself, which for 
fourteen years had echoed in the ears of his country- 
men, across the vast ocean, which separates Asia from 
Europe. The tribunal, at which he was arraigned, 
was rather patriarchal than judicial in its functions ; 
itself the source of all legislation and the supreme 
arbiter of right ; and though, of course, amenable to 
the external law, yet in its own sphere, subject to no 
rules, except that wise discretion, with which the pru- 
dent and just man dispenses government to his. owii 
household. Much of the testimony was of that moral 
weight, which always avails and is enough, in the 
ordinary transactions, the intercourse and the busi- 
ness of society. The lookers on, in the great spec- 
tacle, were the civilized and the uncivilized world, all 
competent to determine upon the universal character- 
istics of inhumanity, oppression and fraud, — without 
confining themselves within those narrow limits of 
construction, held requisite at the Old Bailey or Petty 



MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 163 

Sessions, in order to convict some half-starved culprit, 
of a breach of the game-laws, or half a shilling's 
worth of larceny. 

Besides his most questionable services to his coun- 
try's cause, (if that cause be such as honor and in- 
tegrity may fairly sanction,) and his unprincipled 
extension of English jurisdiction by fraud and vio- 
lence, not by wisdom, — there are, after all, two points 
in the character of Hastings, to which Mr. Macaulay 
directs his reader's attention. All personages, distin- 
guished as he was, are known, of course, by certain 
marked characteristics of fortune and disposition. I 
venture to predict, that few would have been likely, 
in this relation, to hit, as Mr. Macaulay has done, 
upon the " want of rapacity" on the part of Hastings, 
and his "honorable poverty!" He asserts the Gov- 
ernor-general not to have been rapacious, because 
the whole sum and substance of his extortions were 
not devoted to his own individual benefit. But this 
was manifestly a thing impossible. Besides, there 
can be nothing more fallacious, than this mode of 
reasoning. In fact, few men care for money for itself 
alone. The character of a mere miser is as rare, as it 
is unamiable. The state of miserhood itself is as 
much a disease of the mind, as any of the other un- 
fortunate hallucinations, to which human nature is 
subject. But men, in general, struggle for wealth, 
to secure the purposes of their pleasures and the grat- 



164 MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 

ification of their passions ; for ambition, reputation, 
power ; for the interest of their families, or to secure 
comfort for their own declining years ;■ in short, to 
serve some kind of ulterior object, which the mere 
possession of wealth unemployed does not and cannot 
answer. Hastings knew that he could sustain him- 
self in power, only by gratifying the cupidity of those 
who placed him there ; and that he could eventually 
advance his personal objects, only by the same means. 
Mr. Macaulay excuses him, because, although he 
seized, without cavil, upon all the money he could 
grasp, he did not see fit to appropriate the whole to 
his own individual use ; and urges, that he might 
have returned with a fortune, surpassing that of any 
crowned head in Europe. But Mr. Hastings was 
apparently wiser, in his day and generation, than to 
attempt any such quixotical undertaking. If he had 
done so, he would never have escaped condemnation. 
He remembered that he had other objects ; that his 
conduct was closely scrutinized ; that he had many 
and powerful adversaries, both in Europe and Asia ; 
that he had been already, in effect, once displaced for 
abuses ; that he had finally been summoned home 
from his government ; that, in any event, in all likeli- 
hood, he would be called to strict private, if not public 
reckoning upon his return ; that any flagrant and 
undisguised guilt, of this character, would deprive 
him of his only means of exculpation ; that it would 



MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 165 

be more easily appreciable by his judges, less readily 
excusable by his immediate employers, since such a 
dazzling accumulation of plunder could have been 
kept for his own use, only at their expense ; — and he 
contented himself with bringing home a fortune of 
only several hundred thousand pounds ! His lady, 
indeed, had acquired a large additional and private 
treasure, by the same justifiable means, — without his 
connivance, says Mr. Macaulay, — but this could hardly 
be. His "honorable poverty" had been endured in 
India, during fourteen years, on a salary of <£25,000, 
besides great opportunities. Moderation is undoubt- 
edly a noble and an honorable quality ; but I should 
hardly think of claiming it for that man, as a special 
virtue, who, having the chance presented of filling 
all his pockets with other people's money, contents 
himself with filling only one, on account of the diffi- 
culty of carrying the whole safely away. The bulk 
of the mutual acquisitions of Hastings and his lady 
was finally expended in conciliatory presents, and in 
the preparation for and conduct of the defence. His 
affairs fell into some confusion, and he was assisted 
with loans by the Company, who settled upon him 
eventually a sufficient pension. He regained his pa- 
ternal estate of Daylesford, but the title was never 
revived in his favor. As one of the most striking 
instances, on record, of the caprice and injustice of 
popular opinion, when he was summoned to the bar 



166 MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 

of the Commons, in 1813, to give evidence relative to 
Indian affairs, the House, (that is, the successors of 
those, who once tried and virtually convicted him of 
high crimes and misdemeanors) rose and stood un- 
covered in his presence. Supposing him to have been 
only the doubtful character, which the most favorable 
history claims, it was to their indelible disgrace. 
Some of his old antagonists were still there. They 
pulled their hats over their brows, and kept their 
places. 

It seems to have been matter of much occasional 
speculation in England, what were the real motives, 
which induced Mr. Burke to take so deep an interest 
in this great question, and to maintain, in regard to 
it, a position of such uncompromising and determined 
perseverance ; or, to state the question in the only 
shape, which could make wonder on this subject jus- 
tifiable, — for 

— what stranger cause yet unexplored, — 

so good a man as Mr. Burke could pursue with such 
unrelenting indignation so good a man as Mr. Has- 
tings ! I pass by the fact, that Sheridan and Fox, 
and others of high name, men of minds less pure and 
principles less sound than his, were with him, to a 
greater or less degree, in the progress of the prose- 
cution. I omit also the consideration of the point, 
that a similar question, with all its attendant circum- 
stances, seldom, if ever, has so forced itself upon the 



MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 167 

attention of mankind. Private hostility and a hun- 
dred other inadequate, improbable and unfounded 
motives have been suggested, to account for a course 
of conduct, which resulted from the clear qualities of 
Burke's character, and which lies upon the surface of 
the facts involved in the case. To the investigation 
of these he himself avers, that he brought the scrutiny, 
the reflection and the devoted and untiring labor of 
many years. 

From all these supererogatory imputations Mr. 
Macaillay handsomely justifies him. He eloquently 
alleges that great man's intimate acquaintance with 
the history, government, manners, and all the public 
and private relations of the Asiatics. He supposes 
him to have been actuated only by the highest, the 
purest and most honorable considerations; but sug- 
gests the kind of coloring, with which his imagination 
invested the subject-matter, which he had so much at 
heart. The real question is, whether the Grand In- 
quest, thus summoned to serious duty, in the mind of 
Mr. Burke, did, in fact, " present things truly." And, 
indeed, this appears to have been the actual purpose, 
for which this much-abused faculty, this misunder- 
stood imagination, was made part and parcel of the 
human character ; to exhibit the distant, the past and 
the future, — things in which we have the highest 
interest, though they are remote and invisible, in 
their true aspect of real and absolute existences. 



168 MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 

Without it, to some reasonable extent, heaven and 
hell, the absent and the lost, would be to us indeed 
unmeaning and most unsubstantial incomprehensibil- 
ities. The enjoyment of this faculty, unalloyed by 
selfishness or any baser interest or bias, enabled Mr. 
Burke to see things, precisely as they were to be ap- 
prehended by the mind, rather than the senses ; to 
grasp the true character and bearing of events in 
India, just as if they had occurred at his own fireside. 
No doubt, it is the want of this quality, in some meas- 
ure, which leaves men at a loss to account for the 
influences, which enabled him to see and to tell the 
truth. And it was this want, to a certain extent, 
combined with the thousand other easily-understood 
considerations, which led to the final discharge of 
Hastings. It is felt, as a great misfortune, sometimes, 
that criminals should escape, through the interests of 
men, or their incapacity rightly to appreciate what 
the purity of justice would require. But, in fact, if 
there were no Mr. Burkes in the world, or men of 
similar, if inferior characteristics, such persons would 
always escape, except so far as interest, vengeance, or 
some other private passion pursued them to doom. 
To cultivate and honor this quality, therefore, to every 
reasonable degree, would seem to be a sort of neces- 
sity of society, in order to raise and support what in 
it is low. For, as observation will teach us, that the 
mind of the individual man, when entirely devoid of 



MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 169 

imagination, scarcely comes up to the nobler instincts 
of many inferior animals, — so society, "without a due 
intermixture of this temperament, by a certain nat- 
ural and necessary consequence, becomes corrupted, 
degraded, selfish, — " earthly, sensual, devilish." For 
imagination is the handmaid of reason, as woman is 
the helpmeet of man, — and neither is capable of be- 
ing compared with the other, upon any definite clas- 
sification of their respective attributes ; but the one 
continually serves the purpose of opening new vistas 
of immortal prospect, outside of the ordinary range 
of merely sensible thought, as the other equally in- 
spires emotions, tending to the essential elevation of 
the human character, and which, otherwise, would lie 
sunken and undiscovered in the depths of the natural 
being. 

I have spoken of the public history of Hastings, in 
a manner only too fully warranted by the ample 
evidence on record. It occurred to me to take up 
the subject in some detail, partly, because an arti- 
cle like that of Mr. Macaulay appeared capable of 
effecting considerable mischief, and partly, because I 
conceived it not inappropriate to the times to show, 
that all the sin of the world did not rest upon the 
consciences of the American people ; and that, al- 
though it affords no apology for our own offences, 
yet, considering the extent and nature of the ex- 
cesses committed, at no very distant period, in Asia, 
15 



170 MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 

and excused if not approved by the legislative author- 
ity of England, the people of that country are not 
perhaps so much entitled, as if their skirts were clear, 
to fold their broad phylacteried robes about them, 
and to stalk away, justified, as if from some unholy 
contact. 

And I do not admit the validity of the kind of 
defence, which is pretended to be set up for Hastings, 
by those who would palliate his conduct. A bad 
man may be made the instrument of bringing about 
some good, but yet he is a bad man. He, who with 
the power of doing unlimited evil, carries it only 
partly into execution, of course, is deserving of less 
severe condemnation, than one who is utterly and 
irretrievably depraved. But, in truth, the world 
affords very few examples of such monsters, for 
whom there is no means of urging some possibility of 
extenuation ; and I know not where to look for them, 
unless, perhaps, under the Roman Empire, amongst 
several of the more tiger-like than human successors 
to the Julian purple. Yet if, on the tomb of Nero, 
some unknown hand strewed flowers, it ought not to 
surprise us, that apologists should be found for the 
enormities of Warren Hastings. In our moral judg- 
ment of men, since we are all only too frail and 
liable to temptation and error, it is surely becoming 
to exercise every reasonable degree of charity and 
fair interpretation. But when we cannot help per- 






MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 171 

ceiving an immense preponderance ,of evil, and that 
good or bad conduct alike are pursued only for sel- 
fish ends, it would be something more than weakness 
to bring to it either palliation or defence. 

" His principles," admits Mr. Macaulay, " were 
somewhat lax. His heart was somewhat hard. We 
cannot with truth describe him either as a righteous 
or a merciful ruler. * * * Those who look on 
his character without favor or malevolence, will pro- 
nounce, that, in the two great elements of all social 
virtue, — in respect for the rights of others and in 
sympathy for the sufferings of others, he was de- 
ficient." One would think that this were enough ! 
Unprincipled and hard-hearted, unrighteous and un- 
merciful ! Regardless of other men's rights and un- 
pitying towards their calamities ! And being thus 
apparently out of the pale of those ordinary and 
necessary attributes of our nature, which both human 
and divine requirement make essential to a man, 
much more to a ruler, he did not deserve, — at least 
the kind of article, in which he has been incidentally 
eulogized by Mr. Macaulay. 

To allege him to have been a statesman, in any 
just sense of the language, appears to me to be absurd. 
His successes, such as they were, may be sufficiently 
accounted for, on other principles. " The world," 
remarks Dr. Johnson, " has been long amused by the 
mention of policy in public transactions, and of art, 



172 MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 

in private affairs ; they have been considered as the 
real effects of great qualities, and as unattainable by 
men of the common level. Yet I have not found 
many performances, either of art or policy, that re- 
quired such stupendous efforts of intellect, as might 
not have been effected by falsehood and impudence, 
without the assistance of any other powers." What 
the best of statesmen are, upon the recognized prin- 
ciples of society, involves a definition of qualities, to 
which there is no parallel in the character we have 
been considering. He is no more entitled to the 
distinction of this name, than the other unprincipled 
and unscrupulous tyrants, who spread dominion over 
the defenceless by conquest, who awe the weak by 
power, and extend empire by violence, and are great, 
only because they are successful. What a statesman 
ought to be, it might perhaps, in these days, appear 
somewhat invidious to inquire. In England, to re- 
gard the interest, to maintain the liberty, to promote 
the happiness of all classes of his countrymen ; to be 
less ambitious of foreign conquest, than of contented 
peace at home ; to uphold justice, that first great law 
of earth and heaven ; to encourage moderation, to 
repress jealousies, and by reasonable concession, to 
avert impending revolution — in India, — if Provi- 
dence had called him to preside over the destinies of 
infinite millions of mankind, — by a liberal wisdom 
and a wholesome integrity ; by the maintenance of 






MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 173 

those virtues, which men are bound to practise ; by 
the exhibition of principles, whose acknowledged 
theory our conduct denies ; by proving that truths of 
more than momentary importance weigh somewhat 
upon our minds ; to show that we are indeed desirous 
of promoting instead of impeding the great purposes, 
for which the Almighty created and sustains the 
world, — the welfare and happiness of all his crea- 
tures — 

Th' applause of listening senates to command, 
The threats of pain and rain to despise, 

To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, 
And read their history in a nation's eyes. 

And, if we are told, that this is only ideal, — never 
heard of in Calcutta, — never dreamed about in Down- 
ing Street, or at Washington, — it is only because 
Truth has become ideal, through the corruptions and 
abominations of political machinations ; because mod- 
ern usages have converted things, in their origin 
good, into the worst of evils ; have debased politics, 
from being the noblest of sciences, into the meanest of 
arts ; have made government a treachery and diplo- 
macy a fraud. 

Indeed, I am acquainted with no stronger in- 
stance, than the one thus presented, of the danger 
of reposing great trusts in the hands of men, whose 
minds have neither been subdued by religion, nor 
disciplined and controlled by learning. For while 
15* 



174 MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 

true religion tends to the repression of all false am- 
bition, true learning elevates and directs that which 
is purest, by storing the mind with the generous and 
honorable precepts of those who have gone before. 
Besides discouraging the emotions of interest and 
vanity, it sets before us the highest examples of truth 
and virtue ; and he would be least likely to corrupt 
the manners or pervert the liberties of his country, 
who enters upon the scene of his duties, from the 
company of philosophers, orators and sages, and all 
who have best illustrated whatever is noble, disinter- 
ested and dignified in the character of man. 

And yet Mr. Macaulay, in language both touching 
and beautiful, deplores that the dust, which Hastings 
had dishonored, did not find its last repose under the 
cloistered arches of Westminster Abbey ! And though 
a life of crime, even in high places, would seem de- 
serving of no better doom than a death of infamy, and 
though Jezebel, (to use one of those scriptural illus- 
trations, to which Mr. Macaulay is so partial) even a 
king's daughter, was eaten by dogs in the portion of 
Jezreel — yet, in ' this temple of silence and recon- 
ciliation ' he would build a trophy to the memory of 
Hastings ; to point out to the ingenuous youth of 
England, how a bad man, under the sanction of the 
Church itself, can be honored in his monument, when 
honors are useless, except as instructions to the 
living; to teach them, that, Spartan-like, they may 









MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 175 

steal, if, with a high hand and an unblushing front, 
they secure success in their villany ; to confound the 
difference, never too broadly marked, in human eyes, 
between virtue and vice ; to draw a veil of still more 
impenetrable darkness, before that light, never too 
effulgent, through a worldly medium, which helps -us 
to discriminate between right and wrong ! 

Had he really been admitted into that sublime 
sanctuary of philosophers, heroes and poets, where, 
side by side, sleep the rulers of England, each one in 
his own place, — he might indeed have been welcomed 
by much society, well enough suited to such a guest, 
— the Tudor and the Plantagenet, ' the stern Edwards 
and the fierce Henries,' — and if equal merit had 
forever met with equal reward, amid the silence and 
nothingness, where all men finally sleep together in 
the grave, he might there have lain down in company 
with the grasping and perfidious John, — the bloody 
Mary, — Richard, the crafty usurper, — and him, per- 
haps, the worst, whose brutal and unmanly tyranny 
neither learning softened nor religion restrained, — 
and all they from beneath might have been moved to 
meet him at his coming ! But if the guardians of the 
temple have no privilege to exclude delinquent royalty 
from its precincts, they might well scruple at affording 
such a consummation to the obsequies of Hastings. 
If much that is unworthy necessarily reposes in those 
solemn shadows ; if they who are there, were not free 



176 MR. MACAULAY ON WARREN HASTINGS. 






from the errors, the failings, the vices of men, — at 
least, it is well they should be such, that the first sug- 
gestion of their names, the first aspect of their mau- 
soleums should associate itself with something that is 
honorable, agreeable or praiseworthy, in the history 
of mankind. But there, where the first promptings 
of an ambition, commendable if it had been generous, 
dawned upon his youthful mind, — there, where, after 
the lapse of more than three quarters of a century? 
his somewhat frivolous old age submitted to the " in- 
evitable hour," — let him, who desires to honor the 
memory of Hastings, bend over his tomb, in silence 
and alone, amidst the solitary obscurity of the chancel 
of Daylesford. 



ADDRESS 



BEFORE THE 



MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 

ON THE 

DEDICATION OF HORTICULTURAL HALL, BOSTON, 
May 15, 1845. 



Mr. President, and Gentlemen of the Society : — 

It is a touching, and to some of yon, perhaps, 
familiar incident, which is related of a celebrated 
English traveller,* whose genius and misfortunes 
have long closely allied him with every human sym- 
pathy. He had penetrated the interior solitudes of 
Africa, in pursuance of his first adventurous research- 
es into that distant and mysterious land. He was in 
the midst of the vast deserts of a barbarous clime, 
hundreds of miles away from the very outskirts of 
civilization, and surrounded on every side by the 
beasts of the wilderness, and by men scarcely less 
ferocious. He had suffered every privation and every 
ill. He was alone in the dismal waste, with a worn 
and failing body and a sinking mind. It was while 

* Park. 



178 DEDICATION OF HORTICULTURAL HALL. 

the chance of life appeared a thing almost too hope- 
less for conjecture, and a thousand natural emotions 
thronged upon his soul ; while the present seemed to 
crowd into its narrow hour the accumulated memories 
of all the past, and offered him but the prospect of a 
miserable death upon the barren sands, for the home 
which he had left with such eager and buoyant ex- 
pectations, and the loved and lovely things he might 
behold no more — it was at this moment of desponden- 
cy and distress, that an object caught his eye, which, 
perhaps, from the heedless or the happy, would 
scarcely have attracted a passing glance. It was a 
small moss, of extraordinary beauty, in the process of 
germination; and, as he contemplated the delicate 
conformation of its roots and leaves, the thought 
forced itself irresistibly upon his mind, that the same 
bountiful and eternal Providence, which protected 
this minute but lovely object in obscurity so com- 
plete, and in the region of perpetual barrenness, 
could not be unmindful of one of his intelligent be- 
ings, the highest in the scale of natural creation, for 
whose use and benefit the system of visible nature 
was itself ordained. It was the reflection thus sug- 
gested which banished his despair, and nerved his 
heart to those renewed efforts, which secured his 
eventual return to his native, land. 

There could be no more striking illustration than 
this, of the benevolent order of the universe ; which 



DEDICATION OF HORTICULTURAL HALL. 179 

so often vindicates itself under circumstances appar- 
ently fortuitous, by demonstrating the purpose and 
value of those things, whose utility a cold philosophy 
had endeavored to discover in vain. It were, indeed, 
too much to say, that the minutest atom which floats 
in infinite space, or the meanest flower that blows 
upon the bosom of nature, has been created for no 
valuable end. If the purposes of existence were less 
than they really are, in the eye of reason and enlight- 
ened philosophy, we might have been subjected to a 
very different constitution of outward things. To 
surround us merely with those objects, which might 
minister to our actual necessities, were to deprive our 
senses themselves of their very noblest attributes, and 
to contract within the narrowest limits the circle of 
our capacities and desires. Take from us, indeed, 
those lovely manifestations of external beauty ; those 
sweet, and graceful and glorious creations, which 
tend much more, perhaps, to the promotion of our 
present happiness, as well as to the perfection of our 
immortal destiny, than all which the world counts 
most worthy of its pursuit, — and our minds were 
dark, and our hearts dead within us, instead of kin- 
dling with the glowing earth, as, radiant with bright- 
ness and beauty, she smiles to meet the embraces of 
the returning Spring. 

The very savage, indeed, must derive some moral 
elevation from the contemplation of external nature. 



180 DEDICATION OF HOETICULTURAL HALL. 

For his untutored soul, as well as for the mind of the 
most cultivated student of the works of creation, that 
orient pavilion, flushed with a thousand gorgeous and 
shifting hues, from whose refulgent portals issue the 
outgoings of the morning ; the deepening loveliness of 
that softer heaven, which ushers universal nature to 
repose ; the changing year, as its advancing seasons 
ripen into mellower beauty ; — yes, all and each, with- 
in the rudest recesses of the primeval wilderness, as 
well as amidst the refinements of a more polished 
condition of life, in their turn have given wing to a 
sublimer imagination, have widened the sphere of in- 
tellectual exertion, and dignified the reflections and as- 
pirations of the moral being. The Indian maiden, who 
decks her jetty tresses with the wild flowers plucked 
by the margin of the forest brook, drinks in from them 
the same images of grace, fragility and beauty, which 
they are fitted to inspire in the proudest bosom that 
beats in regal halls ; where every silken tint that art 
has curiously embroidered, and every radiant gleam 
that glitters from clustered gems, were incomplete 
without these simpler charms, furnished by the cheap 
provision of nature, yet more resplendent in their 
freshness, than the array of Solomon in all his glory ! 
But if such be the universal influence of natural 
beauty ; if over even the soul of a barbarian it exerts 
this inborn power to charm the imagination and ele- 
vate the mind ; surely, amidst the hourly cares, which 



! 



DEDICATION OF HORTICULTURAL HALL. 181 

in more civilized life press upon the hearts of men, 
they can find no relief so easily attained, and, at the 
same time, so refreshing and salutary, as the contem- 
plation of those lovely things, which our common 
mother, for the common use and entertainment of 
her children, hangs sparkling with dew-drops upon 
every tree, or flings with bounteous profusion over 
her luxuriant bosom. 

Whoever enters upon the attentive examination of 
these objects, in the spirit of rational philosophy, will 
be certain to attain a reward at least commensurate 
with his exertions ; for, if it acquire him no other pos- 
session, it cannot but bring him that priceless one, of 
an innocent heart and a gentle mind ; and a student 
of nature, who should become sensual and debased, 
would present as strange an anomaly as an undevout 
astronomer. 

Indeed, the constitution of the mind itself is im- 
bued with the spirit of love for natural beauty. 
And sad were his lot, who has so entirely lost this 
impress originally stamped by the hand of God upon 
the soul of man, — who is so thoroughly " of the earth, 
earthy," as to have forfeited all conscious enjoyment 
of the glorious creation around him, crowned by every 
revolving season with its own peculiar magnificence 
and beauty. Of the tendency of many of the great 
pursuits of life to render us sordid and selfish, if 
they are modified by no controlling influence, the fact 
16 



182 DEDICATION OF HORTICULTURAL HALL. 

is only too apparent. The very refinements of o 
social being corrupt as well as polish. The human 
character insensibly dwindles amidst the pursuits of 
civilized society. The range of our feelings becomes 
contracted under the weight of the conventionalisms 
of life. The sphere of thought itself grows narrower, 
in the plodding routine of daily occupations. Con- 
fined amongst the converging thoroughfares of popu- 
lous existence, the man becomes almost necessarily 
assimilated, in thought and habit, to those with whom 
he is associated. He unconsciously conforms, and 
often degrades his being by conforming, to the set- 
tled maxims and theories around him ; until, 

Like a drop of water, 
That in the ocean seeks another drop, — 

he confounds himself, and loses the identity of his 
own peculiar and perhaps nobler characteristics. 

Consider, then, the mother of the seasons in some 
of her infinite manifestations. You wander into the 
fresh fields and gather the flowers of spring. In 
crystal vases, resting, it may be, upon sculptured 
marble, you cherish these frail children of the sun 
and showers. You renew them before they wither, 
and gaze with exquisite delight upon their delicate 
texture and the manifold perfection of their mingling 
hues. They appeal forever to your inmost heart, as 
silent mementos of all things sweet, and beautiful, 



DEDICATION OF HORTICULTURAL HALL. 183 

and pure. They are eloquent of perpetual suggestions 
to the answering soul. They fill your mind more 
than all that lives upon the canvas of the mightiest 
master. The least and meanest of them all more 
satisfies your imagination, than the choicest statue 
wrought by the divinest hand. To your cultivated 
mind they address themselves, in their momentary 
beauty, like images of things more perfect in immor- 
tal loveliness. They are emblems of the affinities of 
your moral being with whatever is complete in infinite 
glory beyond the skies. Like the eternal stars, that, 
on the brow of midnight, assure us, with their un- 
speakable effulgence, that Heaven and its hopes are 
yet there, so these, the stars of earth, spring upon her 
verdant bosom, the mute memorials of an inscrutable 
immortality. In the humble dwelling-place of the 
poorest laborer, in some crowded city's dim alley, into 
which the golden light of day pours scarcely one beam 
of all his abounding and pervading flood, you may 
often discern some simple flower, which indicates the 
longing of our more spiritual being; which recalls 
to the mind's eye of the wearied man the green fields 
of his boyish days, and impresses him again and 
again,— oh, not in vain ! — with the gentler and purer 
emotions of his childhood. They come upon him, 
amidst the dust and heat, and perhaps the wretched- 
ness, of his daily lot, like outward manifestations 



184 DEDICATION OF HOETICULTURAL HALL. 

of the inner spirit-world. They are the signals of 
thoughts 

Commercing with the skies. 

They are like gleams of a fairer and brighter sunshine, 
from realms " beyond the visible diurnal sphere." 

The time does, indeed, come to all men, when they 
would gladly escape from the crowd and confusion of 
common life, and 

Forth issuing on a summer's morn, to breathe 
Among the pleasant villages and farms, 

would forget the thronging cares which have exhaust- 
ed their hearts, in company with the lilies of the field, 
that toil not, neither do they spin. It is, indeed, by 
influences such as these that we acquire not only 
fresher impulses to duty, but far higher and nobler 
principles of action. Experience, it is true, teaches 
us that the mere drudgery of rural pursuits can have 
little effect, in raising the private or social condition 
of the man. To turn the verdant soil, for the mere 
sustenance of life, would as little impress his mind 
with the true sentiment of his occupation, as any 
poetical idea of the gloomy grandeur of ocean enters 
into the soul of the tempest-tost and weather-worn 
mariner. The rustic laborer might forever follow his 
plough upon the mountain side, and trample with 
heedless foot upon the brightest flowers, that appealed 




DEDICATION OF HORTICULTURAL HALL. 185 

with dewy eyes in vain to his plodding sensibilities ; 
and the village maiden, obeying those truer and 
npbler instincts, inseparable, I believe, from every 
woman's heart, with every returning Spring, might 
gather and weave them into her rustic coronal, with 
no definite consciousness of their more spiritual im- 
port. But to fulfil their highest ministry they must 
have become blended with their kindred associations. 
They must have linked themselves, as they have done, 
with the domestic, and public and religious story of 
the world. Their sweet and gentle names must have 
floated upon the voice of song. They must have 
given language of eloquent significance to the pas- 
sionate impulses of the human heart. They must 
have spoken of the fragility of life, under that sweetest 
and most touching of all sad similitudes, — a fading 
flower. They must have crowned the wine-cup, 
amidst the revels of " towered cities," and mingled 
with the sunny locks of the queen of May, upon the 
village green. They must have waved upon the brow 
of the returning victor, wreathed their modest tints 
amongst the tresses of the blushing bride, and re- 
posed in pale and tranquil beauty upon the marble 
bosom of death. They must have proved their power 
to sound the secret well-springs of our hearts, and to 
draw up the sweeter waters beneath, hidden, as with 
a veil, by the intertangled sophistications and false- 
hoods of the world. They must have been won from 
16* 



186 DEDICATION OF HORTICULTURAL HALL. 

their wild and unseen solitudes, and nurtured and 
cherished with a dear and reverent love. 

But much as we love to meet them in their green 
retreats, on the fragrant meadow, by the rural road- 
side, or in the wild recesses of the rocks, it k as the 
friends and companions of our daily duties, that we 
most welcome their sweet and holy ministry. Nur- 
tured by our own hands, they become indeed the 
faithful solace of our cares, and the rich reward of all 
our pleasant toil. And then, how more than strange 
is this wonderful result with which beneficent Nature 
repays our fostering charge ! What miracle so mar- 
vellous, as this mysterious development, which we so 
disregard, because we call it the common course and 
order of creation ! When the returning season fills 
our hearts anew with its returning hopes, we take the 
unsightly and insignificant seed. We bury it out of 
our sight beneath the dark, insensate earth. The 
dews and the showers fall upon what might well seem 
to be its eternal bed. The sun reaches its secret rest- 
ing place with a vital and incomprehensible energy. 
It awakens from its slumber, and no apparent ele- 
ments of its original conformation remain. It starts 
into being, developing newer and ever-varying aspects, 
—till 

from the root 
Springs lighter the green stalk, from thence the leaves 
More aery, last the bright consummate flower 
Spirits odorous breathes. 









DEDICATION OF HORTICULTURAL HALL. 187 

And then, what human philosophy is competent to 
explain the unseen cause, which, from elements ap- 
parently so inadequate, brings up the slender and 
tapering shaft, shoots forth the verdant leaf, and em- 
bellishes its lustrous crown with inimitable purple, or 
the flowering gold ! What wonderful chemistry is 
this, which so filters the moisture of the earth and the 
dew of heaven, and combines and diffuses the just 
proportions of the vital air through every intricate 
fibre, till it blushes in the bloom of the queenly Rose, 
and makes the virgin Lily the emblem of purity and 
light ! With what unerring skill they are blended or 
contrasted, in their infinite variety of " quaint enam- 
elled dyes " ! With what exquisite order and precision 
their gorgeous retinue appears, each at its accustomed 
season, and gathers the successive harvest of its tran- 
sient glory ! 

Daffodils, 
That come before the swallow dares, and take 
The winds of March with beauty ; violets dim 
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes 
Or Cytherea's breath ; pale primroses, 
That die unmarried ere they can behold 
Bright Phoebus in his strength ; - * * 
* * * bold oxlips, and 
The crown-imperial ; lilies of all kinds, 
The flower-de-luce being one. 

Of all the gentle and welcome company, not one but 
lifts its starry cup or hangs its clustering bells upon 



188 DEDICATION OF HORTICULTURAL HALL. 

the spiral stem. And oh, still stranger transforma- 
tion, when this treasured darling of an hour, so rich 
in glowing charms and fragrant with delicious sweet- 
ness, yields to the immutable law of its destiny, re- 
folds the vital principle of its being within the shape- 
less and scentless husk, and flings itself once more to 
its wonted repose in the embraces of the fulfilling 
earth ! 

It were, perhaps, too much to allege, that for our 
use and pleasure alone were created these loveliest 
objects of the natural world, so curious in contriv- 
ance, so matchless in surpassing beauty, so eloquent 
in the lessons of unerring wisdom. Of the originally 
perfect, but now interrupted, relation between things 
beautiful and things morally good, we may form some 
not irrational conjecture. That they are sadly dis- 
joined, under our present condition, we well know. 
But if, as we are told, 






Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth, 
Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep, — 






it were not unreasonable to conclude, that, to their 
celestial apprehension, the lovely aspects of creation 
may afford a delight correspondent with the primal 
relations between all things in themselves excellent ; 
that to them, as to the Infinite Author, the loveliness 
of creation may seem very good. Nor are we capable 
of understanding, how far the inferior orders of being 



DEDICATION OF HORTICULTURAL HALL. 189 

are susceptible of enjoyment from the same sources 
with ourselves. That their organs are affected to 
some extent by the same sights, as well as sounds, 
which address themselves to our own sensations, and 
that they do appreciate some of the properties of the 
vegetable world, we have the most abundant evidence. 
That the " grazed ox " would trample, in the fragrant 
meadow, upon the springing blossoms, that fill the 
soul of the merest child with irrepressible delight, is 
no less true, than that the bee lingers upon the flow- 
ery bank, in pursuit of his sweet repast, or that the 
wild bird trills his spontaneous song where dews are 
brightest, amongst leaves and flowers. Yet we may 
be sure, that to us alone, of the common dwellers 
upon earth, is given the power of justly appreciating 
these munificent gifts of the benevolent Author of all 
things. To us alone has been afforded the faculty of 
deriving the most innocent enjoyment from their cul- 
tivation and care ; and, since the first habitation 
assigned to our common parents was indeed a Para- 
dise,* we may conclude, that in the indulgence of no 
other of our pleasures do we so nearly approach their 
happy and sinless state. 

There can be, indeed, scarcely a change more strik- 
ing, than to leave the noisy streets of the " dim and 
treeless town" for the pleasant garden, stretching 
away under the broad reviving sunshine, in the sweet 

* IIAPA'JEIZOZ, a garden. 



190 DEDICATION OF HORTICULTURAL HALL. 

and open air. Of all the ordinary vicissitudes of life, 
I am aware of none which involves a revolution so 
absolute. We quit the sights which offend us at every 
turn, and enter upon a scene affluent in all things, 
which please the eye and refresh the imagination. 
Instead of the tumult and intemperate haste of the 
crowded haunts of men, we rest with the repose of 
nature, broken only by murmurs that are delicious, 
and the warbled music of the skies. For the suffo- 
cating steam of crowded life, we inhale ineffable per- 
fumes, that float upon the breath of flowers. We 
forget the debasing competitions of wealth and fame, 
and enter into the innocent pursuits of the guileless 
creatures of the air. Instead of the too often profit- 
less companionships of society, we meet ourselves. We 
become the companions of our own inner thoughts, 
and the things which intervene between our hearts 
and heaven are those, which only link us more closely 
to the infinite aspirations of our souls. That voice 
within speaks to us like a trumpet, whose whispers 
were almost inaudible through the tumult and hurry 
of life. The heart which was harder than the nether 
millstone, in the cave of Plutus, softens and expands 
# to the just amplitude of its nature, beneath the liberal 
sunshine and under the broad and bounteous atmos- 
phere. And still, like that primal Eden, though 
shorn and diminished of those heavenly flowers, 

That never will in other climate grow, 



DEDICATION OF HORTICULTURAL HALL. 191 

it is yet the faint image of the original paradise, and 
the only earthly region instinctive with the spirit of 
an Almighty and universal Love. For here, indeed, 
it is that 

o'er the flower 



His eye is sparkling and his breath hath blown, 

His soft and summer breath, whose tender power 

Passes the strength of storms in their most desolate hour. 

A populous solitude of bees and birds 

And fairy-form'd and many-colored things, 

Who worship him with notes more sweet than words, 

And innocently open their glad wings, 

Fearless and full of life ; the gush of springs, 

And fall of lofty fountains, and the bend 

Of stirring branches, and the bud which brings 

The swiftest thought of beauty, here extend, 

Mingling, and made by Love, unto one mighty end. 

It is from places like these, that the benefactors of 
the world have derived the strength of their generous 
impulses. It is here that statesmen and poets and 
philosophers have retired, and moulded those divine 
conceptions, which have resulted in the advancement 
and elevation of mankind. It was into such a retreat, 
that that noblest Roman,* styled by onef " the most 
wise, most worthy, most happy and the greatest of all 
mankind," entered, after he had made his native city 
the mistress of the world. In that venerated solitude, 
to which many a pilgrim step turned, in the succeed- 

* Scipio. t Cowley. 



192 DEDICATION OF HORTICULTURAL HALL. 

ing ages of his country's history, wiser than he who, 
in later times, 

Exchanged an empire for a cell, — 

he forgot alike his glories and their cares, and con- 
ceived that illustrious sentiment, which could never 
have arisen in an ignoble or ambitious mind, Nun- 
quam minus solus quant cum solus. From the rose- 
beds of Psestum, rich in the bloom of their double 
harvest,* was wafted that breath of flowers, which 
ages ago stirred and mingled with the sublimest of 
human emotions in " Rome's least mortal mind :" 
from that Psestum, whose fragrant odors yet faint 
upon the summer gale, amidst the ruins of man's less 
durable achievements ; that Paestum, where still 

The air is sweet with violets, running wild 

Mid broken pieces and fallen capitals ; 

Sweet as when Tully, writing down his thoughts, 

Those thoughts so precious and so lately lost, 

(Turning to thee, divine philosophy, 

Ever at hand to calm his troubled soul,) 

Sailed slowly by two thousand years ago, 

For Athens ; when a ship, if northeast winds 

Blew from the Passtan gardens, slacked her course. 

We have read, with ennobling emotions, in our 
school-boy days, of the reluctance with which the 
royal gardener of Sidon f left his pleasing toils, for 

* Biferique rosaria Psesti. — Virg. 
t Abdolonymus. 






DEDICATION OP HORTICULTURAL HALL. 193 

the purpose of assuming the burdensome cares of 
state. And it was from such a scene that Horace 
might well have refused to part, to enjoy the more 
intimate companionship of the master of the world ; 
especially as this doubtful privilege must have been 
alloyed with the society of that proud but degenerate 
capital, to which Jugurtha, not long before, had said 
adieu in language far more just than flattering: 
" Farewell, cruel and venal city, which requirest only 
a purchaser, in order to sell thyself and all which thou 
dost contain." And it was in the shades of those Sa- 
lonian gardens, which his own hands had made, that 
Diocletian, the emperor, received the ambassadors, 
who vainly strove to reinvest his brows with 

the hollow crown 
That rounds the mortal temples of a king. 

But perhaps one of the finest natural illustrations 
of the interest, which still clings to pursuits like these, 
long after the heart is comparatively dead to all other 
human cares, is to be found in the pages of the great 
novelist, whose pictures appear to us less like efforts 
of imagination, than delineations of nature herself in 
her invariable aspects. The venerable Abbot of St. 
Mary's, according to the tenor of the tale, formed 
apparently for times less troublous than those which 
then distracted his unhappy country, resigns to a 
bolder spirit his conspicuous post in the van of the 
17 






194 DEDICATION OP HORTICULLTURAL HALL. 

armies of the church, now become literally and car- 
nally militant. He betakes himself, with cheerful 
resignation, to the horticultural occupations of his 
earlier and happier days. But his present pursuits, 
as well as his former condition and character, serve to 
involve him in the plots and counterplots, formed for 
the liberation of that fairest flower of Scotland's 
beauty, whose uttered name has so long awakened, 
and will forever awaken, every romantic emotion in 
the human bosom ; of that lovely Mary, less a queen 
than a woman, whose melancholy story, after the 
lapse of nearly three centuries, so stirs the heart, that 
all seems harsh and cruel, which sullen history would 
dare to blend with the memory of her beauty and her 
wrongs. Yet in spite of her loveliness and misfor- 
tunes, the pious and transmuted Abbot, stricken, it is 
true, somewhat into the vale of years, struggles hard 
between his allegiance to his queen, consecrated, as it 
is, by his duty and devotion to the church, and his 
affection for his garden-plots, which the rude feet of 
messengers and soldiers might trample ; for his fruits 
and his flowers, — his bergamots, his jessamines and 
his clove-gilliflowers. Let queens escape from prison, 
or kingdoms pass away, so the season return in its 
freshness to his more intimate domain. " Ay, ruin 
follows us everywhere," said he ; " a weary life I have 
had for one to whom peace was ever the dearest bless- 
ing. * * I could be sorry for that poor queen, but 






DEDICATION OF HORTICULTURAL HALL. 195 

what avail earthly sorrows to a man of fourscore ? — 
and it is a rare dropping morning for the early cole- 
wort."* 

But I know of no picture more agreeable than that 
of old age, which the world, if it has robbed it of 
all things else, has been unable to cheat of its relish 
for these innocent pleasures. There is nothing to 
rival it, unless it be the unalloyed delight of children, 
in the midst of a garden. How eagerly they scamper 
along the walks, and stoop over the brightening beds ! 
At the very approach of spring, their hearts are 
bounding as at some unheard-of joy. To them, the 
golden hours of summer are laden with a rapture 
unknown to later years. With what exquisite enjoy- 
ment they enter upon the minutest examination of 
the most common things ! The flowers that are their 
own make them rich with an almost untold wealth. 
The springing grass to them is like the verdure of a 
fairy creation, and every folded bud comes forth, the 
miracle that it is in their soft and earnest eyes. 

And then, what a host of illustrious names throng 
upon our memories, and seem to sanctify these 
pleasant and quiet scenes. I speak not now so much 
of the poets, who have been forever the chosen inter- 
preters of nature's mysteries, and wanting whom, she 
might forever have uttered oracles, sounding to the 
wise, but vague and indefinite to the general appre- 

* The Abbot, Vol. II. 



196 DEDICATION OF HORTICULTURAL HALL. 

hension. But the time would fail me to tell the great 
and illustrious names of English history, blended wfth 
every memory of these endearing pursuits : of Wol- 
sey, magnificent in all his enterprises ; of Sidney, 
conceiving the delicious dreams of " Arcadia," in his 
ancestral bowers at Penshurst ; of Wotton, flattering 
the Virgin Queen with his present of orange trees 
from Italy, still flourishing in their original perfec- 
tion ; of Temple, whose heart so clung to the delight- 
ful recreations of his leisure hours, that, by his will, 
he directed that heart itself to be buried beneath the 
sun-dial in his garden ; of Evelyn, whose very name 
awakens every pleasing association connected with 
rural pursuits, and whose noble sentences are full of 
the heart and soul of one, who loved the soil that bore 
him, with every emotion becoming a patriot and a 
man ; of Raleigh, the graceful and gallant, learned 
and brave ; of Bacon, in the language of Cowley, 

Whom a wise king and Nature chose 
Lord Chancellor of both their laws ; 

of that Bacon, who would have fresh flowers upon his 
table, while he sounded the depths of divine and 
human philosophy ; of Addison, the regenerator of a 
more manly taste in gardening, as well as literature ; 
of Locke, the childlike philosopher, exchanging his 
researches amongst the labyrinths of the human mind 






DEDICATION OF HORTICULTUEAL HALL. 197 

for studies on a fairer page, the open book of Nature, 
in her 

hues, 
Her forms, and in the spirit of her forms — 

and who, unlike that illustrious Roman, to whom I 
have referred, loved the society of children rather 
than perfect solitude ; of Cowley and Pope, Walpole, 
Shenstone and Oowper, and a hundred others, who 
have illustrated this subject by their genius, and who 
are dear to us by every kindred tie which connects us 
with the memorials of the mind ; of Newton, conceiv- 
ing, from a natural phenomenon in his garden, of the 
mighty law which balances this solid earth amidst the 

» unshaken spheres ; of Fox, turning without a sigh 
from that great assembly which he had so often con- 
trolled by his sagacious eloquence, and finding, amidst 
his flowers and trees at St. Anne's Hill, a happiness 
far more real, than during the long years, when he 
had been the very idol of popular applause, or for the 
brief but dazzling hour, when, having finally grasped 
the prize of a life-long ambition, he directed the des- 
tinies of millions of his fellow men ; or of Wash- 
ington — our own — the greatest name of all — forget- 
ting, amidst rural pursuits and pleasures, every care, 
but that never-ending anxiety for the welfare of his 

I country ; while the gathering plaudits of the grateful 
people, blessed under his beneficent rule, swelled 
above the retreating echoes of victory, — until all grew 
17 # 



198 DEDICATION OF HORTICULTURAL HALL. 

at length to him inaudible, amidst that hallowed 
repose, and beneath the solemn whispering shadows of 
Mount Vernon. 

And oh, what glory and delight have the poets 
flung around these delicious resting-places of the 
soul ! — from the time of the wise and royal singer of 
Israel, who tells us, " I made me gardens and orch- 
ards, and I planted in them trees of all kind of 
fruits ;"* from the father of Grecian minstrelsy, revel- 
ling in fancy in the gardens of Alcinous, and the 
master of the Eoman lyre, learned in all the science 
of the generous pursuit ; from the sylvan shades of 
Arqua, and every " bosky bourne" which Boccacio so 
exquisitely delineates, down to the grottoes and flower- 
beds of Twickenham, and the almost sacred solitudes 
of Olney. With what a charm the imagination in- 
sensibly clothes the passage of those golden hours, 

When Jonson sat in Drummond's classic shade ! 

What tree of our own planting is more familiar to us 
than Pope's willow, or Shakspeare's mulberry, set by 
himself in his garden at New Place ? And we have 
all of us, I trust, devoutly execrated the barbarous 
hand, which so recently despoiled this tree of trees, 
which, but for such sacrilege, might have been visited 
by our children's children. And when we read, in 
one of the early biographies of Milton, that " a pretty 

* Ecclesiastes. 






DEDICATION OF HORTICULTUEAL HALL. 199 

garden-house he took in Aldersgate street, at the end 
of an entry, and therefore the fitter for his turn, by 
the reason of the privacy, besides that there were few 
streets in London more free from noise than that ;"* 
we may well believe that there, rather than in the 
shock of life, his serene imagination might lavish all 
its riches amongst the flowery groves of Paradise. 
Yes ! it is the true poets who are with us, not only 
when the sunshine nestles upon the mossy bank or 
beds of violets, but who come to us alike when Nature 
herself is sad and silent, and, even at the wintry fire- 
side, pour the joy of summer into our longing hearts. 
It is they who have embroidered the virgin page with 
inwrought words of every curious hue, — 

Of sable grave, 
Fresh green, and pleasant yellow, red most brave, 
And constant blue, rich purple, guiltless white, 
The lowly russet, and the scarlet bright ; 
Branched and embroidered like the painted Spring ; 
Each leaf matched with a flower, and each string 
Of golden wire ; * * * * 

* * There seem to sing the choice 

Birds of a foreign note and various voice ; 
Here hangs a mossy rock ; there plays a fair 
But chiding fountain purled ; not the air 
Nor clouds, nor thunder, but are living drawn ; 
Not out of common tiffany or lawn, 
But fine materials which the muses know, 
And only know the countries where they grow. 

* Phillips. 



200 DEDICATION OF HORTICULTUEAL HALL. 

Without these glorious hues and forms, indeed, I 
know hot of what materials the literature of a nation 
could be composed. And thus it is, that from the 
earliest age, and amongst every people, their beauty 
and the spirit of their beauty have haunted the soul 
of song. We know that, in all the countries of the 
East, flowers have forever constituted the symbols of 
sentiment and affection. The Greeks, who appear to 
me by no means deficient in that element of the 
romantic, which the moderns are so ready to arrogate 
entirely to themselves, were passionate in their love 
of flowers. From them have descended to us the 
custom of their employment in triumphal pageants, 
and on occasions of joyful or mournful ceremony ; 
and they had scarcely a familiar flower, of the garden 
or the field, which their imagination had not woven 
into some lovely legend, or made the subject of some 
fanciful metamorphosis. By that most poetical of all 
people, the Hebrews, they were employed as the vehi- 
cles of many a touching and beautiful similitude. Of 
all the gorgeous company, there are none so familiar 
to our tongues and hearts, as the two which they have 
most distinguished with their affectionate admiration. 
How the spirit of devotion itself appears to spring, at 
the very mention of those well-known names of things 
so beautiful and pure ! 

By cool Siloam's shady rill 

How sweet the Lily blows ; 
How sweet the breath, beneath the hill, 

Of Sharon's dewy Rose ! 






DEDICATION OF HORTICULTURAL HALL. 201 

I have thus endeavored, gentlemen, to discourse to 
you in a manner, I would fain hope, not entirely in- 
consistent with the spirit of the occasion. It has 
been my purpose to avoid that turn of technical 
remark, which, before such an audience, might have 
proved presumptuous in me rather than instructive 
to you. That scientific knowledge, which the genius 
and enterprise of modern times have brought to the 
pursuit of your liberal objects, may be found in 
sources easily accessible. Of the dignity and value 
of these objects it were unnecessary to speak. To 
apply any elaborate eulogium to this pursuit were as 
reasonable, as to justify the great sun of Heaven him- 
self, in the fullness and glory of his illustrious beams. 
The beautiful and costly edifice, which you have 
erected, is the most fitting testimonial of your liber- 
ality, as its purpose affords the surest evidence of 
a refined and intellectual community. " God Al- 
mighty," says Lord Bacon, " first planted a garden ; 
and indeed it is the purest of human pleasures ; it is 
the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man ; with- 
out which buildings and palaces are but gross handi- 
works ; and a man shall ever see, that, when ages 
grow to civility and elegancy, men come to build 
stately, sooner than to garden finely ; as if gardening 
were the greater perfection." 

There can be, indeed, no question whatever that 
Horticulture, as a scientific pursuit, is of very recent 



202 DEDICATION OF HOETICULTURAL HALL. 






date. The most famous gardens of antiquity, we 
may be sure, could enter into no sort of comparison 
with those, which would now be considered as ex- 
hibiting the most moderate pretensions, in point of 
the variety and beauty of their productions. As to 
what those were, with their arbors, which Caesar be- 
queathed to the Roman people, we can form little 
adequate idea.* The hanging gardens of Semiramis 
have been accounted amongst the wonders of the 
world. Yet nothing can be more certain than that 
the " Beauty of the Chaldee's excellency " could af- 
ford the royal mistress of Assyria not a single nose- 
gay, to be compared with the meanest of those, which 
constantly grace your elegant and spirited exhibitions. 
Were it not for the apparent necessity of the case, 
arising from the absence of intercommunication be- 
tween different people, it would be unaccountable 
how little progress was made, for long ages, in an art 
so eminently attractive in itself, and so universally 
interesting to mankind. It is true, that conquerors, 
at all periods of time, have traversed vast portions of 
the world. But, with the exception of the emperor 
Napoleon, the pursuits of science, or the advance- 
ment of society, have rarely entered into their schemes 
of personal or national aggrandizement. But what 
vast improvements in this, as in other respects, have 
resulted from the extending commerce of the world ! 

* Csesaris hortos. — Hor. 



DEDICATION OP HORTICULTURAL HALL. 203 

Of all the countless profusion of fruits and vegetables, 
which make the fertile face of England " as the gar- 
den of the Lord," those indigenous to her soil are of 
the most insignificant description. Few even of those 
sweetest flowers, which her later poets have woven 
into many a golden song, are of her own original 
production. The oak, and some of the more com- 
mon forest trees, were all that her Druid groves 
could boast. The very mulberry of Shakspeare was, 
in his day, a rare exotic, and one of a large importa- 
tion procured from the continent by King James, in 
1606. And if, as we are told, in the times of Henry 
VII., apples were sold at one and two shillings each, 
the red ones bringing the best price, we may con- 
clude, that when Justice Shallow treated Falstaff to a 
last year's pippin of his oiun graffing, it might be an 
entertainment, at least, commensurate with the dig- 
nity of such a guest. 

It has been recently stated, that the average value 
of the plants, in a single horticultural establishment 
of London, is estimated at a million of dollars. And 
oh, before this magnificent result had been reached, 
from the comparatively trifling beginning, of a few 
centuries ago, what infinite care and cost must have 
been expended ; "v^Jiat love for the generous science 
must have been fostered and encouraged ; what dis- 
tant and unknown regions had been visited and rifled 
of the glories of the plains and woods ! — from soli- 






204 DEDICATION OF HORTICULTURAL HALL. 

tary Lybian wastes and those paradises of Persia, the 
Land of Roses, so eloquently described by Xenophon ; 
from 

Isles that crown th' iEgean deep, 

to the boundless expanse of this bright heritage of 
ours ; from Tartarian deserts to prairies of perpetual 
bloom ; from the fertile breadth of fields, beneath the 
southern skies, to the strange continents of foreign 
seas and verdant islands of the ocean, 

whose lonely race 



Resign the setting sun to Indian worlds. 

Combined with this adventurous spirit of modern 
discovery, is another principle, which has proved 
eminently favorable to the interests of horticultural 
science. The higher social condition of those softer 
companions of our garden-walks and labors and 
gentle cares ; the more liberal position awarded them, 
under the influence of advancing civilization ; our 
deeper interest in their moral and intellectual cul- 
ture, and our more generous regard for their inno- 
cent gratification, have entwined a thousand graces 
and refinements, once unknown, amongst the coarser 
texture of social life. Never, indeed, do they enter 
so intimately into our joys, and g^efs, and affections, 
as in gardens and amongst flowers. For them, and 
not for ourselves, we reclaim the scattered blossoms 
along the wilderness of Nature; we ask of them a 



DEDICATION OF HORTICULTURAL HALL. 205 

more tasteful care in the cultivation of these sweet 
and beautiful objects, thus won from the desert and a 
thousand times rewarding all our pains ; and for 
their pleasure and adornment we mingle those soft- 
est, brightest hues, and fold the interwoven bud and 
flower and leaf into innumerable shapes of grace and 
loveliness. 

Welcome, then, for this, if for no other cause, the 
Hall which you have thus prepared, and have deco- 
rated and garlanded to-night with the choicest treas- 
ures of the Spring. Long, long may it stand, an 
evidence of no vain or idolatrous worship. Unlike 
those grosser handhvorks of cold and glittering 
marble, which crowned, in ancient days, the barren 
cliff, or looked, in lifeless beauty, 

Far out into the melancholy main, — 

but touched with the spirit of every gentle and noble 
association, and consecrated by the soul of all our 
dearest affections, welcome, to them and to us, be 
this Temple of the Fruits and Flowers. 

18 






EULOGY ON PRESIDENT TAYLOR, 



OPENING OF THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, 
IN BOSTON, JULY 15, 1850. 



May it please the Court : — 

I rise, with feelings of inexpressible sorrow, to per- 
form the severe and mournful duty, which my position 
imposes upon me. I announce to you, officially, that 
sad event, which has already become known to you 
through so many channels, the sudden and lamented 
decease of Zachary Taylor, President of the United 
States. It is well that some brief interval has taken 
place, between the occurrence of this great national 
calamity and the session of the Court. Our minds 
required the indulgence of some lapse of time to 
enable us to recover, in a measure, from the first 
shock of an affliction so profound ; and that we might 
regain some power of language, in which to inter- 
change the painful emotions of our hearts. 

It is little more than one brief year since General 
Taylor assumed the exalted station, which He, who 
holds the lives of all men and the destinies of nations 



208 EULOGY ON PRESIDENT TAYLOR. 

in his hands, has called upon him thus unexpectedly 
to relinquish. To that station he was welcomed by 
the unbounded confidence of his friends and the sin- 
cere respect of his opponents ; and the whole people 
regarded him with that involuntary admiration, which 
his signal success in the field had excited in the hearts 
of this nation, and in the eyes of the civilized and 
uncivilized world. For there is no remote people, 
amongst whom the flag of our country has been un- 
furled, which has not heard of his triumphs, and 
learned through them to respect the American name. 

His wisdom, his moderation and his sterling worth 
had allied to him more strongly, every day, the affec- 
tionate trust of his fellow-citizens. At a period of 
great doubt and perplexity and danger, in the affairs 
of this country, they reposed securely upon his saga- 
cious counsels and the undoubted purity and integ- 
rity of his heart. And in every crisis his honored 
name would have been as a tower of strength, around 
which to rally the great energies of this nation, for 
the maintenance of whatever is dear to us in the insti- 
tutions and inheritance of our fathers. 

It has pleased God to disappoint these expecta- 
tions ; and he who was yesterday our hope, is mingled 
to-day with the common and undistinguishable dust. 
The language which faltered from his dying lips will 
form the noblest and most appropriate epitaph for his 
tomb : " I am not afraid to die. I have endeavored 



EULOGY ON PRESIDENT TAYLOR. 209 

to perform my duty. My only regret is in leaving" 
my friends" Like whatever else he has uttered, 
upon the eve of great occasions, it embodies, in brief 
and forcible expression, those striking elements, which 
constituted the admirable basis of his character ; his 
deep aifection, his devotion to duty, his trust in God, 
and that high courage, which had so often sustained 

^him in the face of the enemy, and now indeed has 
proved unfailing to the last. 
For himself, his death is happy, glorious and august I 
He was at the summit of human greatness. He had 
sought no such elevation ; and all men felt that, in his 
administration of his great office, no selfish feelings or 
purposes could intermingle. He was blessed by the 
entire devotion of domestic attachment ; and, 

I Honor, love, obedience, troops of friends 

accompanied him, with unfaltering adherence, in the 
exalted course of his daily life. He has now escaped, 
by death, those vicissitudes which attend upon the 
highest earthly estate. Envy, detraction, and the 
force of all those miserable passions, which too gen- 
erally influence the conduct of mankind — 

Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing 
Can touch him further. 

He has left to his country a name and an example, 
worthy the glorious days of the noblest republic in 
the most heroic age. He has died amidst the general 

18* 






210 EULOGY ON PRESIDENT TAYLOR. 

and heartfelt grief of his fellow-citizens. And it is 
not too much to say, that no public man, in this or 
any other nation, has ever left the scene of his mortal 
labors, amidst the more universal sorrow of all classes 
and conditions of the people. Were this the fitting 
time and place for the expression of such feelings, I 
might well speak more at length of the almost filial 
veneration, with which many, who had been favored 
with his personal intercourse, regarded him. But 
the language of private grief it is scarcely becoming 
to mingle with the voice of public and general lamen- 
tation ; and all, who can appreciate such a character, 
have the right and the privilege to claim their share 
in the common loss. For he was eminently one, who 
aspired only to be the father of his country; and 
earnestly he strove to emulate the virtues and pat- 
riotism of him, whose name has long since been con- 
secrated by the universal homage of mankind. 

Assuredly I have read in vain the history of the 
world, and have failed to regard with justice the 
character and conduct of my cotemporaries, if I err 
in believing, that the late President of the United 
States possessed, in a singular degree, the true ele- 
ments of unquestionable greatness of character. We 
may, indeed, indulge in vague notions of human su- 
periority ; and while the mind is dazzled by this ideal 
standard, few whom we have known, and, it will 
prove, that few whom the world has ever known, will 



EULOGY ON PRESIDENT TAYLOR. 211 

come up to our delusive criterion. But, reduce hu- 
man nature in general to the sad, yet true propor- 
tions of its qualities, and there are few, indeed, whose 
many virtues and slight counterbalancing frailties 
will leave them so far above the level, as he whose 
loss we now so sincerely deplore. 

For the mind of the President was capable of the 
highest conception of what constitutes the common 
good, and his heart included in its broad embrace 
every object of the most enlarged benevolence. His 
fervent and devoted patriotism, bounded by no bar- 
rier of education or prejudice, was ready to undergo 
the extremest sacrifice for the public welfare. He 
exhibited a firm reliance, in the darkest hour, upon 
the tried resources of his own resolution and judg- 
ment, an unshaken constancy of purpose, a superiority 
to evil fortune, and serene moderation under the 
more dangerous advances of the best — a true and 
exact integrity within every public and private rela- 
tion — and to unblemished purity of life he joined the 
most unassuming simplicity of demeanor, and that 
dignified humility, which is a jewel of untold price 
upon the brow of the ruler of the people. A long and 
prosperous course of existence, so spent in the service 
of his country as to conduct him, eventually, without 
solicitation, and against his well-known desires, to be 
the leader and chief magistrate of more than twenty 
millions of freemen, ended in an administration of 



212 EULOGY ON PRESIDENT TAYLOR. 

affairs, which, meeting and conquering many scruples 
and prejudices, has won for him the affection and 
veneration of the people, until now, that they weep 
no simulated tears, as his gray and honored head is 
laid in the common dust. And if qualities, and pur- 
poses, and successes, siich as these, do not constitute 
the highest claims to human greatness, I am at a loss 
where to look for them in the history of mankind. 

The Roman poet, in an age full at least of the mem- 
ory of heroic qualities and characters, has set forth 
his model of a great ruler as 

"Justum et tenacem propositi virum;" 

and claiming this noble and admirable description, 
we can yet embellish its very justice in its application, 
when we proclaim that General Taylor was eminently 
a true man, — true to himself — true to all mankind ; 
that he never did intentional wrong to any human 
being ; but devoted his whole life, with all its most 
honorable purposes and energies, to the welfare of 
others and the promotion of the common cause. 

That great biographer of the wonderful men of an- 
tiquity, whose pages he loved to study and contem- 
plate, would have nobly depicted him ; would have 
dwelt with fondness upon his excellent qualities and 
characteristics, and all that distinguished him, in" an 
age by no means prodigal of heroic virtues or extra- 
ordinary qualities of mind and heart ; and would have 



EULOGY ON PRESIDENT TAYLOR. 213 

assigned him no mean position amidst that illustrious 
company. And, under the influence of whatever 
motives his cotemporaries may be induced to regard 
him, it needs no prophetic vision to anticipate the fiat 
of posterity. 

But since he is now so far removed from the effects 
of human censure or applause, it becomes us to con- 
sider how the republic may best derive benefit from 
his lamented death. His life is ours. But his death 
may avail us even more than his life, if we receive it 
as an admonition of the providence of God. If we 
ire indeed a Christian people, we will not believe 
that the Supreme Ruler of the universe, without 
whom "not a sparrow falleth to the ground," has 
taken away the head and hope of the nation, at its 
hour of extremest need, without the design to im- 
press some forgotten lesson upon our hearts. If it 
tend to lead us to more entire dependence upon Him ; 
to repress the narrow and unworthy passions which 
agitate us ; to soften the bitterness of party strife ; to 
subdue the rancor of public and private animosities ; 
to induce us to yield our partial views to considera- 
tions of the general welfare ; to control and conquer 
sectional differences ; to enhance in our eyes the 
value of sacred institutions, and to bind us more 
closely to our common country ; could such be the 
result, neither the glorious recollections of his life, 
nor the sad memorials of his untimely death will 



214 EULOGY ON PRESIDENT TAYLOR. 






have proved altogether in vain. And he, could he 
live to-day, would count his valued life but a willing 
sacrifice, to secure such blessings to the land he so 
loved and served. 

And, with this imperfect tribute to the memory of 
a great and good man, I respectfully move that this 
Circuit Court of the United States do now adjourn. 



LIFE AND WORKS OF FISHER AMES.* 

[From the Monthly Law Reporter.] 



The written lives of great men are truly invalu- 
able. If fairly and properly presented, there is no 
class of writing so useful, and it certainly loses noth- 
ing in this respect, by being usually entertaining as 
well as instructive. And we suppose, that nothing 
tends so much to keep up society, and to check that 
downward tendency, to which, by the law of nature, 
all human things are subject, as the example and 
instruction afforded by biographies of the illustrious 
departed. We are the more disposed to offer this 
consideration to the attention of our readers, because 
in our day a great deal has been said in derogation of 
what some have denominated " hero-worship ; " es- 
pecially by those who are willing to forget that the 
elements of great character, after all, must be great 
qualities ; and who can, necessarily, offer us, as a 
substitute, only qualities, scarcely to be accounted so 

* Works of Fisher Ames. With a Selection from his Speeches and 
Correspondence. Edited by his Son, Seth Ames. Boston : Little, 
Brown & Company. 1854. 



216 LIFE AND WORKS OF FISHER AMES. 

well worthy of our respect and admiration. We 
acknowledge, for our own part, that we prefer to 
worship heroes, if need be, rather than those who 
have no title to any such appellation. 

The reasons which go to constitute the sound basis, 
upon which our views in regard to this subject are 
founded, seem to us almost too obvious to require 
much effort at elucidation. The framework of human 
society, as we have already suggested, is not kept 
moving in regular order, and subject to just influ- 
ences, by the mere operation of its own friction. On 
the contrary, if human affairs were left entirely to 
the management of those who, unhappily, possess no 
heroic tendencies, we apprehend that their ordinary 
pursuits would descend very low, in the scale of 
dignity and honor and whatever else tends to pro- 
mote the improvement and elevation of the race. In 
a word, it is really great men, and not petty men, — 
men of noble minds and generous sympathies and 
elevated views and exalted talents, — those whose im- 
pulses and principles and aspirations conduct them 
honorably along the high and difficult paths of public 
service, — who undoubtedly deserve, as they have gen- 
erally enjoyed, the peculiar respect and gratitude of 
mankind. 

It sometimes happens, however, in the decay of 
States, under popular institutions, that men of no 
great ability or honor get the upper hand. In the 



LIFE AND WORKS OF FISHER AMES. 217 

midst of public factions and the jealousies and rival- 
ries of political conflicts, hordes of the least deserving 
often become ambitious. The presumption of such 
persons is usually on a par with their ignorance, and 
they are unscrupulous, just in proportion as they are 
deficient in the higher sentiments, which control the 
conduct of better men. They are thus able, by 
means of combination and the impulse of common 
though selfish interest, to carry their objects into 
effect, and to exclude from the conduct of affairs 
those who are most able to understand and to man- 
age them the best. The consequence always has 
been, and always will be, that a flood of degeneracy 
will sweep over the surface of society ; and, unless 
checked by better influences, a nation, once enlight- 
ened, cultivated, generous and free, may become in 
the progress of time, as has often proved to be the 
case, degraded into barbarism, or its people supple 
slaves to the worst and meanest tyrants. 

In a word, if free institutions are to flourish and 
be at all permanent, they must rest upon established 
principles of generally understood application, rather 
than stand openly exposed to the fluctuations of pop- 
ular impulse or caprice ; and the people who enjoy 
their advantages must vigilantly require, that the 
popular will shall be intelligently directed and ex- 
pressed, and the laws be devised and administered by 
19 



218 LIFE AND WORKS OF FISHER AMES. 

the ablest and best citizens, fitted to represent worthily 
the interests of the whole. 

This, we observe, is an imperfect summary of Mr. 
Ames's political principles and opinions, for which 
some people saw fit, in his day, to stigmatize him as 
an aristocrat. In this view, and for the example and 
warning of other times, we conceive that his son has 
now conferred a real benefit on the public, by pre- 
paring this memorial of his illustrious father. For 
Fisher Ames was, unquestionably, a great man ; of 
the true, old-fashioned, sterling, devoted stamp. Not, 
certainly, that we mean to be understood as alleging, 
that either he, or his cotemporaries, were quite free 
from errors and defects, which, in his case, it might 
be difficult to point out, but with which public men, 
in all ages and countries, have been more or less 
chargeable. Of one thing we are sorry to feel a 
clear confidence, that the standard of public obli- 
gation and the tone of public honor were altogether 
higher in his day than in our own ; that the scale of 
generous patriotism had not generally been permitted 
a descent so low, and at the same time so safe, as 
more modern times have witnessed ; and that politi- 
cal corruption as yet duly paid its decent and respect- 
ful external homage to public integrity. In a word, 
no one ever doubted, that we ever heard of, that 
Fisher Ames was an honest man ; true to his prin- 
ciples, his conscience, his country and his Maker! 



LIFE AND WORKS OF FISHER AMES. 219 

Throughout the great administration of Washington, 
^during a period which, as Mr. Ames himself has 
admirably characterized it, " that government was 
administered with such integrity, without mystery, 
and in so prosperous a course, that it seemed wholly 
employed in acts of beneficence," — and in subsequent 
more stormy times, side by side with men of power- 
ful character and exalted ability, whose energies had 
been developed and concentrated, and vivified, amidst 
the stirring events of the revolution, — Mr. Ames was 
always seen in the front rank, and there he was seen v 
to the last, without a stain. We once heard one of 
his cotemporaries,* who knew him well, say, " Every 
body loved him." What a character is this ! Better 
than fame, and more to be desired than the proudest 
rewards of all human ambition. To have passed 
through the troubled scenes of an eventful life, and 
the fierce, rancorous, unsparing conflicts of political 
warfare, with the general good- will, affords surely the 
highest testimonial, not merely of the excellent kind- 
ness of his heart, but of the sincere, unflinching and 
unsuspected uprightness of his character and life. 

This is clearly no place, in which to indulge in 
speculations upon the principles of the great party, 
which he so long aided to conduct, with an ability, 
kindred, at least, to the highest genius, and a sagacity 
often prophetic, from the directness and singleness of 

* The late Hon. I. P. Davis. 



220 LIFE AND WORKS OF FISHER AMES. 

purpose with which he regarded public affairs. But 
the nature of these doctrines, in their general scope, 
and often in their minute details, and the earnest 
sincerity, which signalized his devotion to their eluci- 
dation and support, are sufficiently developed in the 
pages of these volumes. 

We have styled Mr. Ames illustrious, and his titles 
to be thus distinguished we believe will be more fully 
acknowledged, the more closely they are investigated. 
They are, it is certain, of that solid character, which 
will bear the substantial test of time. The too nar- 
row space, which our own pages allow us to afford to 
the notice of these handsome volumes, is due to the 
character of Mr. Ames, as an ornament to the profes- 
sion of the Law ; though the exigencies of the times, 
as well as his own inclinations, unquestionably, en- 
larged him into a statesman, instead of permitting 
the devotion of his life to the drudgery, or even to 
the higher pursuits of the Bar. 

The volumes are introduced by that elegant and 
feeling sketch of Mr. Ames's life, prepared by the 
late President Kirkland, which has long been held one 
of the noblest tributes ever paid by one good man to 
the memory of another. This is followed by the 
" Letters," invaluable, of course, as sources of illus- 
tration of the public and private history of the times ; 
and the second volume is made up of the political 
speeches and political essays of Mr. Ames. It is not 



LIFE AND WORKS OF FISHER AMES. 221 

our province to pronounce upon writings and oratori- 
cal efforts, which have, long since, taken their place 
in the public estimation. The Letters, now collected 
and published for the first time, constitute a new ele- 
ment of interest, and entitle the editor to our grati- 
tude, for this highly valuable portion of his filial 
work. Our own publication is so exclusively devoted 
to the exposition of legal principles and the annals of 
judicial tribunals, that we are unable to devote any 
space to the consideration of the life and public char- 
acter of Mr. Ames. This is the less necessary, how- 
ever, by reason of the existence of that succinct and 
delightful personal sketch, by Dr. Kirkland, already 
alluded to. 

The letters of Mr. Ames, however, we wish to 
remark, are of very great value. They run through 
the long period from 1789 to 1807 ; including, there- 
fore, a series of years filled with events of the highest 
consequence, both to this country and to Europe, and 
covering that tract of time, in which the principles of 
our own government were most thoroughly examined, 
settled and established. They are written mostly off- 
hand, in an easy, agreeable style, without any apparent 
deliberate attempt at artificial construction. Indeed, 
they are all addressed to his familiar friends, who were 
all men of mark in their day and generation. It con- 
stitutes their charm very much, therefore, as well as 
19* 



222 LIFE AND WORKS OP FISHER AMES. 



their value, that personal allusions, often to those of 
whose private life we cannot hear too much, and that 
suggestions in regard to domestic matters, of which 
more than we could wish appear to have been omitted, 
— are interspersed with discussions of public affairs, 
discriminating touches upon the motives and charac- 
ters of public men, comments upon the temper and 
spirit of the people, forebodings, sometimes too soon 
realized, and ardent hopes and aspirations for the wel- 
fare of his country, generally far more than fulfilled. 
They present Mr. Ames in an aspect so attractive, 
through all the relations of life, as fairly to challenge 
credence to the remark of our venerable and now la- 
mented friend, that " every body loved him." The 
body of one of these letters we quote below. It is, it 
will be seen, upon subjects kindred to our own pages. 
It throws some light upon the character of Mr. Ames, 
as a lawyer, and presents, in a striking view, his 
strong and sagacious sense, — indeed, it is actually 
prophetic in its judgments upon his cotemporaries, — 
and, in all respects, may be of service to members of 
the profession, in our own day. It is dated at Ded- 
ham, Mr. Ames's residence, October 5, 1802, and is 
addressed to Christopher Gore, afterwards Governor 
of Massachusetts, as we suppose on the eve of his 
return, from his embassy at London, to his native city, 
Boston. We would suggest, that a few more notes to 
these letters might be of use, and would save the 



. 






LIFE AND WORKS OF FISHER AMES. 223 

trouble to their readers of tiresome research into co- 
temporary documents. 

" You ask my advice about resuming the law business. I cheerfully 
undertake the office, only premising that in deciding the most momen- 
tous concerns of life, a man is not only his best, but almost solely, his 
own adviser. He has exclusively that instinctive perception of what he 
prefers, and of what he can do, that the most discerning friend must 
only suppose, and may, and indeed must, in a great measure mistake. 
Nevertheless, friends ought to advise, because they bring this power of 
self-judging into operation precisely, and with ample materials. All I 
will pretend to do is to frame a special verdict, and then humbly submit 
it to your honor's judgment. 

" Great law knowledge is sure to gain business and emolument. 
The splendid eloquence that displays its treasures may hasten the 
popular judgment to decide that a man possesses them, but ultimately 
the learning of the lawyer decides the measure of his fame. Now, I 
pronounce that you are well fitted by nature and study, as well as 
practice, for such eminence, and by a practice that evinces your exten- 
sive learning and sound judgment as a lawyer, I cannot conceive that 
you will submit to an unfavorable test of character, or that you will 
be degraded from the place your friends wish to see you take. 

" I will therefore assume it as a point proved, that by practice in 
great causes, and where law learning will be chiefly sought for, you 
will not impair the dignity of your standing by resorting to the bar. 
But you will reply, that by returning to open shop you cannot choose 
your customers, nor refuse to sell ordinary wares ; to harangue a jury 
about the flogging given to a sailor, or to mingle in the snipsnap war 
about admitting a witness or a deposition, will often vex and humble 
the liberal mind ; business of small value will not lie in your way. I 
reply, your share will be made up by insurance cases 1 , and questions 
which our bankrupt law is sowing for the harvest of 1804. I observe 
that the little contests and litigations are engrossed by the junior class 
of the profession and by those who never advance beyond mediocrity. 
This is, I think, a different position of things from what existed in 



224 LIFE AND WORKS OP FISHER AMES. 



1 786. You will not calculate on the small fees, nor the vexatious liti- 
gation which concern sixpenny interests and sixpenny passions. Mr. 
Parsons practises on this large scale that I recommend ; and I will add, 
fees are infinitely better than they were in 1786. 

u Who are the rivals for this business with whom you must divide 
the booty ? Parsons stands first, but he is growing older, less indus- 
trious, and wealth, or the hypo, may stop his practice. Otis is eager 
in the chase of fame and wealth, and, with a great deal of eloquence, 
is really a good lawyer, and improving. He, however, sighs for polit- 
ical office — he knows not what ; and he will file off the moment an 
opportunity offers. 

" Dexter is very able, and will be an Ajax at the bar as long as he 
stays. You know, however, that his aversion to reading and to 
practice are avowed, and I believe sincere. His head aches on reading 
a few hours, and if he did not love money very well, he would not 
pursue the law. Sullivan, who seems immortal, is admonished of his 
decay by a fit every three months, and will not be in your way. 

" I, your humble servant, never was qualified by nature or inclina- 
tion for the bar, and this I always well knew. Want of health, and 
the possession of a small competence will stop my mouth, if fate 
should not stop my breath before your return. I have reckoned all 
the persons who pretend to be considerable. John Lowell's health is 
wretched. ... A number of eminent lawyers will be wanted in 
Boston, and though the place is overstocked, I think the prospect for 
1804 not unhopeful. I know of no very dashing young men coming 
forward. 

" Yet truth requires that I should, after all, state my expectation, 
that your share of the business will not be as great as it would have 
been if you had not left the country. It takes time to form connec- 
tions and to resume the old set of clients. You are no chicken, and 
ought not to calculate on a very long period of drudgery at the bar. 
You will, and you ought to, enjoy the otium cum amicis et libris et digni- 
tate, for many years before you die. I will not conceal from you my 
opinion, that you ought not to expect, or to take into your plan, the 
receipt of a great many great bags of money from your practice. I 



LIFE AND WORKS OP FISHER AMES. 



225 



do not found this moderate calculation on your want of merit and 
talent, or on the refusal of the public to admit your title to both ; I 
only insist that, from circumstances connected with you, with rivals in 
practice, and with the state of business, you are not to look for a very 
large income. 

" Suppose, however, instead of six, eight or ten thousand dollars a 
ear, which Hamilton and some others are said to derive from prac- 
tice, you get only fifteen hundred or two thousand dollars, ought you 
to decline practice on that account, or to feel mortified, as if the public 
had rejected and degraded you ? I am interested to insist that this 
estimate of reputation is not fair, for I am not entitled to boast of a 
lucrative practice. The truth is, other considerations deserve weight, 
and the public will give it to them. 

" To be engaged on great law points, and to acquit yourself as you 
will, surely cannot fail to vindicate you with every body. Your time 
of life, your reputation, property, and moderation as to the passion for 
gain, will be assigned as reasons, even before you can assign them 
yourself, for your declining the toil of promiscuous business. It will 
be said, you would not be idle, nor will you be a drudge. This line of 
practice, the only one in your choice, will shelter you from the ungen- 
tlemanly wrangles of the bar, and the courts have of late years set 
about learning some manners. 

" Then the question is fairly before you, whether you will open your 
shop on such terms, and with such prospects as I have stated. Why 
not 1 I ask. You will, or some friends rather of yours will reply, 
why should Mr. Gore descend to this not very respectable, not very 
comfortable, not very lucrative fagging at the bar ? I urge that it is 
better to keep up your style of living by some business, than to change 
it for an idle life, and a style observably lower than that you have been 
accustomed to. A man may make some retrenchments and savings, 
but he cannot greatly alter his expense without descending, which I 
should be sorry you should have forced upon you. A man may not 
incline to take a certain degree on the scale of genteel living, but hav- 
ing once taken it he must maintain it. Still I think that law in Bos- 
ton will keep you out of the way of spending fifteen hundred or two 



226 



LIFE AND WORKS OP FISHER AMES. 






thousand dollars, that a retirement of idle luxury would impose upon 
you at Waltham. Every southern visitor must see your improve- 
ments, show them to his wife, and eat and drink you ten guineas' 
worth. $2000 saved, and $2000 got, is $4000, enough to meet all the 
demands on your treasury, over and above the resources drawn from 
your property. Perhaps the superior cheapness of living in Boston 
may not strike you. I reply, a busy man may make savings and re- 
putably, if he will ; and indeed he must renounce business, or be 
moderate in his pleasures. He must often draw a special plea and 
refuse a feast. This is not all. Make the comparison between busi- 
ness and no business. Farming at Waltham will be some resource, 
but I have no idea that it will afford that steady occupation which is 
essential to keep life from being a heavy burden. Books, you will say, 
afford that resource. In some degree they do, but they need auxiliary 
resources. In case you should be at Waltham, unemployed by the 
public, you will be in some danger of being forgotten by the great 
multitude — out of sight out of mind, is their maxim. By practice you 
will be in sight, and ready, in every one's mind, for such public em- 
ployment as your friends will say ought to seek you. Therefore the 
bar is in my judgment the best place for you to occupy, whether you 
aim at economy in expense, tranquil enjoyment of friends, or the 
resumption of any public station. Your social affections will find 
objects and exercise ; you will be kept busy, and of course cheerful ; 
you will not appear to be laid by or thrown away, but to have chosen 
your old post. Even if you should do little business, the extent of 
your sacrifice will be the more apparent. You will return, not with a 
raging thirst of gain, but with a resolution to study your cases and to 
merit confidence and reputation. 

." Hence I conclude you ought to ' open shop' again. On convers- 
ing with Mr. Cabot, I confess he instantly decided the point against 
me ; on further discussion he came over to my opinion. Indeed, it 
seems to me not merely the best course, but the only one left to you. 
All which is humbly submitted. 

Fisher Ames, Foreman"—^. 299. 



LIFE AND WORKS OF FISHER AMES. 227 

This letter, thus playfully framed and subscribed, 
affords us a fair specimen of Mr. Ames's epistolary 
style. It exhibits also, in a remarkable degree, that 
extraordinary good sense, which, applied to affairs of 
more general interest, is denominated wisdom; im- 
plying a grasp of mind and soundness of judgment 
and a faculty of sagacious discrimination, which are 
the rarest of human gifts. With this no one can 
doubt Mr. Ames was eminently endowed. He has 
been sometimes styled " the Burke of America." 
Such comparisons often fail in some essential particu- 
lars ; and in the present instance, we suppose would 
be understood as intimating some inferiority to his 
great prototype, on the part of the American states- 
man. In our opinion, not rashly formed, Mr. Ames, 
with a cast of mind and genius and a nervous organi- 
zation, in some respects essentially similar to the 
characteristics of Mr. Burke, may well be held fully 
the equal of that great man, except on the score of 
general learning ; for the acquisition and cultivation 
of which, this country afforded fewer opportunities 
and inducements than, at that time at least, existed 
abroad. He was, nevertheless, an elegant scholar, as 
we gather from the memoir, already adverted to ; a 
fact, indeed, sufficiently apparent not merely from the 
classical allusions to be found in his speeches, letters 
and political essays; but from that ardor and glow 
and elevation of thought, which show clearly that his 



228 LIFE AND WORKS OP FISHER AMES. 

mind had been at those great sources of inspiration, 
whose draughts invigorate and ennoble minds of any 
kindred warmth. The grand essays of Mr. Burke, 
rich in all the resources of his luxuriant and subtle 
imagination, were in reality addressed to the higher 
mind of society ; that is, to that audience of culti- 
vated and educated people, whose minds were capable 
of becoming imbued with the spirit of his powerful 
and generous, but frequently abstract speculations ; 
and whose influence upon the administration of pub- 
lic affairs might be, therefore, rather reflective than 
direct. The briefer pieces of Mr. Ames, employing, 
generally and from necessity, no higher vehicle of 
communication with the public, than the newspapers 
of the day, were far more practical concessions to 
such claims, as the people themselves might be thought 
to have upon his instruction and advice. Yet they are 
dignified and enhanced by the weight of his learning, 
and glow with the illuminating fire of his genius. We 
should be disposed to indicate, as one chief point of 
difference, that Mr. Burke thought, while Mr. Ames 
both thought and felt. We do not mean to be under- 
stood, that in our opinion the great British statesman, 
for whom we claim to entertain an unsurpassed admi- 
ration, was really deficient in true manly feeling ; but 
that the emotions caught from the imagination, in the 
closet, must be necessarily somewhat colder than the 
spontaneous and natural bursts of the heart. 



LIFE AND WORKS OF FISHER AMES. 229 

In one important particular, our own countryman 
must bear away the palm. No man surpassed him in 
his faculty of engrossing the profound attention and 
regard of his audience, and few speeches have so thor- 
oughly won the great object of speeches by results, 
so immediately triumphant and overwhelming, as his 
own. Indeed, the clear logical deductions, the soul of 
imagination, the depth of earnest feeling, the states- 
manlike knowledge, the philosophical analysis, the 
force of reasoning, the power, aptness and elegance 
of expression, — all combined in his great speech on 
the British Treaty, delivered in the House of Repre- 
sentatives of the United States, April 28, 1796, — are 
so animated by the vigor, and, so to speak, elastic 
spring of the style, that we who read can have no 
hesitation as to its influence on those who heard it. 
It was of this speech that John Quincy Adams, — cer- 
tainly no incompetent judge, — who had listened, 
under very favorable circumstances, to all the distin- 
guished orators of the British Parliament, at its most 
brilliant period, — to Burke, and Pitt, and Sheridan, 
and Fox, — and who had heard and observed all that 
our own Congress could produce, when the great men 
of those times led on the contending parties, — pro- 
nounced, " There could be no doubt of it — of all that 
he had ever heard — Mr. Ames's speech on the British 
Treaty was surely the most eloquent." 

The closing paragraphs of this noble appeal to the 
20 



230 LIFE AND WOKKS OF FISHER AMES. 

honor, as well as the judgment and reason of the 
nation, which afford, however, a very inadequate idea 
of its general character, are exceedingly touching and 
beautiful. If it be literally true, as we have no ques- 
tion it was substantially so, that this speech was deliv- 
ered without any of that mature antecedent reflection, 
and direct, careful preparation, with which most of the 
grandest efforts of the human mind have been wrought 
out, we should scarcely know where to look for its 
^parallel. 

" Let me cheer the mind, weary no doubt, and ready to despond on 
this prospect, by presenting another, which it is yet in our power to 
realize. Is it possible for a real American to look at the prosperity of 
this country, without some desire for its continuance, without some 
respect for the measures which, many will say produced, and all will 
confess have preserved, it ? Will he not feel some dread, that a change 
of system will reverse the scene ? The well-grounded fears of our 
citizens, in 1794, were removed by the treaty, but are not forgotten. 
Then they deemed war nearly inevitable, and would not this adjust- 
ment have been considered at that day as a happy escape from the 
calamity ? The great interest and the general desire of our people 
was to enjoy the advantages of neutrality. This instrument, however 
misrepresented, affords America that inestimable security. The causes 
of our disputes are either cut up by the roots, or referred to a new 
negotiation, after the end of the European war. This was gaining 
everything, because it confirmed our neutrality, by which our citizens 
are gaining everything. This alone would justify the engagements of 
the government. For, when the fiery vapors of the war lowered in the 
skirts of our horizon, all our wishes were centered in this one, that we 
might escape the desolation of the storm. This treaty, like a rainbow 
on the edge of the cloud, marked to our eyes the space where it was 
raging, and afforded at the same time the sure prognostic of fair 



LIFE AND WORKS OF FISHER AMES. 231 

weather. If we reject it, the vivid colors will grow pale ; it will be a 
baleful meteor portending tempest and war. 

" Let us not hesitate, then, to agree to the appropriation to carry it 
into faithful execution. Thus we shall save the faith of our nation, 
secure its peace, and diffuse the spirit of confidence and enterprise that 
will augment its prosperity. The progress of wealth and improvement 
is wonderful, and some will think, too rapid. The field for exertion is 
fruitful and vast, and if peace and good government should be pre- 
served, the acquisitions of our citizens are not so pleasing as the proofs 
of their industry, as the instruments of their future success. The 
rewards of exertion go to augment its power. Profit is every hour 
becoming capital. The vast crop of our neutrality is all seed- wheat,, 
and is sown again, to swell, almost beyond calculation, the future har- 
vest of prosperity. In this progress what seems to be fiction is found 
to fall short of experience. 

" I rose to speak under impressions that I would have resisted if I 
could. Those who see me will believe, that the reduced state of my 
health has unfitted me, almost equally, for much exertion of body or.' 
mind. Unprepared for debate by careful reflection in my retirement, 
or by long attention here, I thought the resolution I had taken, to sit 
silent, was imposed by necessity, and would cost me no effort to main- 
tain. With a mind thus vacant of ideas, and sinking, as I really am, 
under a sense of weakness, I imagined the very desire of speaking was 
extinguished by the persuasion that I had nothing to say. Yet when I 
come to the moment of deciding the vote, I start back with dread from 
the edge of the pit into which we are plunging. In my view even the 
minutes I have spent in expostulation have their value, because they 
protract the crisis, and the short period in which alone we may resolve 
to escape it. 

" I have thus been led by my feelings to speak more at length than 
I had intended. Yet I have perhaps as little personal interest in the 
event as any one here. There is, I believe, no member who will not 
think his chance to be a witness of the consequences greater than mine. 
If, however, the vote should pass to reject, and a spirit should rise, as 
it will, with the public disorders, to make ' confusion worse confound- 



232 LIFE AND WORKS OF FISHER AMES. 

ed/ even I, slender and almost broken as my hold upon life is, may 
outlive the government and constitution of my country." — p. 69. 

Fisher Ames was born at Dedham, Massachusetts, 
April 9, 1758. There he continued to live, except as 
public duties required his presence at the seat of gov- 
ernment. " His spotless youth," says Dr. Kirkland, 
" brought blessings to the whole remainder of his 
life." At his native place he died July 4, 1808 ; a 
day fitly closing, though too early, the valuable life of 
a true patriot, in peace and honor. There was a 
great deal in his mind, manners, habits, and general 
character, which might well have commended his 
memory to the old -Greek biographer. His last 
thoughts dwelt deeply upon his country, and upon a 
condition of public affairs, which he had employed 
his best talents and energies all his life long to avert. 
He regarded the doctrines, upon which the national 
administration was then conducted, with a feeling 
akin to horror. The same venerable friend whom we 
have before mentioned, and who related this incident 
to the author while he was preparing this article, vis- 
ited him, in company with Mr. Cabot, about ten days 
before his departure. He was then in bed. The 
conversation fell upon the disheartening aspect of the 
times and the dangers threatening the public safety, 
from the discordant elements then at work. " The 
Union must be preserved," said Mr. Ames ; " things 
are bad enough ; but anything is better than dissolu- 
tion." 



HON. CHARLES JACKSON. 

[From the Monthly Law Reporter ] 



We have already announced, as it occurred, the 
lamented decease of this eminent jurist and citizen. 
Our number for January, 1856, contained some brief 
account of the proceedings of the Suffolk bar, in 
recognition of the event ; of the presentation of be- 
coming resolutions to the Supreme Court of the State, 
and of the appropriate response of Chief Justice 
Shaw. The scene in the court-room, which place is 
usually supposed to be little better than a mere arena 
for the combats of trained and conflicting intellects, 
was, upon this occasion, peculiarly affecting. The 
hall itself was thronged with a dense assembly of the 
legal brethren and personal friends of the great law- 
yer departed, and of others, whom various motives of 
curiosity or interested feeling draw together upon like 
occasions. It was a happy circumstance, that one of 
the late judge's former pupils, himself a well-known 
leader at the bar, offered, and, we presume, prepared, 
the resolutions agreed upon, as the expression of the 
common sentiment. They thus derived, from the 
20* 



234 



HON. CHARLES JACKSON. 



influence of familiar intercourse and the ardor of 
private friendship, combined with long habits of well- 
founded respect for the character of the deceased, a 
point, a scope, a fitness, and a genial glow of sympa- 
thy, correspondent with the requirements of the sub- 
ject and the occasion, and far surpassing the ordinary 
formal tone of many similar ceremonials. And who- 
ever had the fortune to listen to the reply of the 
venerable Chief Justice, often interrupted by the in- 
tensity of his feelings, must have perceived, that nei- 
ther the wear and tear of the most extensive profes- 
sional practice, commonly reckoned a somewhat 
hardening, as well as hard, school of experience, — 
nor the loftier demands of eminent judicial position, 
necessarily chill the natural flow of human emo- 
tion, or make or leave a truly great lawyer anything 
other than the true man, which nature intended him 
to be. 

It was observable here, however, as must almost 
always be the case, that the v statement of the deliber- 
ate judgment of those who took part in the proceed- 
ings, so far as the character of the mere lawyer was 
concerned, comprehended only certain terms of gen- 
eralization, highly honorable and laudatory it is true, 
although not especially distinctive, — but equally ap- 
plicable to many who have gone before, as they will 
be to others who may come up hereafter. This is 
the fortune, we will not call it the misfortune, of the 



HON. CHARLES JACKSON. 235 

profession. It Is the fate of the great leader at the 
bar, to make but a temporary mark and to be sum- 
marily forgotten. His life may be one of extraordi- 
nary activity and bustle. He may seem to lire in 
the full blaze of the world's admiring eye. He may 
be engaged, through a protracted series of years, in 
the management of successive causes, which demand 
the exertion of all his energies and faculties, and 
often, perhaps, enlist all his feelings, and which may 
involve the very highest human responsibilities ; and, 
within a very few years after he has passed off the 
stage, his very name will have become obliterated 
from the memory of men, or be only occasionally 
recalled, within the compass of a very limited circle. 
The poet, with somewhat less than his usual ob- 
servance of exact justice, supposes Fame to be nig- 
gardly enough to resume her awards of honor, even 
those bestowed upon her chiefest favorites, if a single 
misfortune should occur to mar the chain of success- 
ful achievements : 

" The painful warrior famoused for fight, 
After a thousand victories, once foiled, 
Is from the book of honor razed quite, 
And all the rest forgot, for which he toiled." 

But the great lawyer, in this country, who has ad- 
vanced through successive triumphs, to the very pin- 
nacle of professional reputation, may hope in vain to 
erect any lasting monument to his memory, unless, 



236 HON. CHARLES JACKSON. 

indeed, his abilities, usually at the' hazard of his 
legal standing, and assuredly to his pecuniary loss, 
have found a field of exercise in the senate as well as 
the forum ; or, unless he be willing to sacrifice his 
professional emoluments, for the inadequate compen- 
sation which attends the honor of the bench, and thus 
secures, at least, a legal immortality, through his 
elaborate judgments recorded in the books. It is 
also true, that the tenor of mere professional life has 
been usually found to be too uneventful for biogra- 
phy. And undoubtedly the objects, upon which the 
most eminent advocate employs his faculties at the 
bar, are generally of very transient interest. His 
chief business, after all, is only to apply long-discov- 
ered and well-established principles to the varying 
conditions of human affairs. And, however absorb- 
ing may be his immediate sympathy with each indi- 
vidual case, the actual interest in the settlement of 
questions of abstract right is very much confined to 
the parties directly concerned. Even if the habits of 
his life permitted him to glance, with the eye of 
imagination, upon family secrets intrusted to him, 
sometimes far surpassing the ordinary boundaries of 
fiction, in passionate intensity of detail and in extra- 
ordinary development of character, or, if professional 
honor authorized him to make them known, — still, 
his own peculiar part, in the control or management 
of such incidents, is little more than that of the good 



HON. CHARLES JACKSON. 237 

fairy in Oriental tales, who appears at the proper 
moment certainly, to relieve virtuous distress or to 
defeat impending malice ; but his own intervention 
is, after all, only incidental, and the main points of 
interest would, by no means, afford the appropriate 
materials for his own personal biography. 

It sometimes happens, however, that the natural 
character of the man stands out so prominently and 
remarkably, outside of his professional, and, we may 
say, his adventitious position, that the general cause 
of human good is likely to be advanced, by selecting 
such an instance for our special observation and ex- 
ample. In the present instance, it affords us a mel- 
ancholy satisfaction to devote some portion of our 
pages to such a brief memoir of the late Judge 
Jackson as our materials permit. For, in a peculiar 
sense, the event of his death, at an age very much 
exceeding the ordinary bounds of human existence, 
derived its importance from the tenor of his life ; and 
we are unwilling that one, in whose character good- 
ness was so fittingly conjoined with intellectual supe- 
riority, should pass entirely out of our sight, without 
some appropriate notice in our pages. He was born 
in Newburyport, May 31st, 1775, and died at his resi- 
dence, Bedford Place, Boston, December 13, 1855. 
Having thus exceeded the great age of eighty years, 
he afforded a signal example of those, who prove to 
what an advanced period a feeble constitution may 



238 HON. CHARLES JACKSON. 

be made subservient and serviceable to the uses and 
control of the mind. Indeed, very many of his latter 
years had been spent in a manner so secluded from 
public observation, that few of the present generation 
would be likely to know what an important profes- 
sional and judicial position he once occupied. As he 
occasionally appeared in the streets, however, accom- 
panied by his attendant, no . observant stranger could 
fail to indulge in some curious speculation upon the 
history of that feeble old man, with the pale and 
thoughtful face ; and the universal respect of those 
who recognized him often must have excited a still 
deeper interest and prompted more earnest inquiry. 
He was, indeed, one of the few remaining links of 
that chain, fast loosening its hold, and very soon to 
be drawn back into the irrevocable past, which con- 
nects our times with a period, one day to be looked 
upon as the great and heroic age of this country ; a 
period not of perfect men certainly, but of a large 
and influential class of those, who were bolder and 
nobler, as it seems to us, and more disinterestedly 
brave and self-sacrificing in the public service, than 
is common now, — of men who were eminent above 
the measure of this day in the various pursuits of 
professional life, — and were gentlemen in the ordi- 
nary intercourse of society, by the example, the culti- 
vation and the public recognition of honor, integrity, 
and just and generous sentiment. 






HON. CHARLES JACKSON. 239 

So far as these causes might tend to the formation 
of a worthy and admirable character, Judge Jackson 
had the advantage of them in the circle of his early 
acquaintance, and especially in the home of his youth. 
For his father was truly a prince amongst merchant 
princes, — an ardent patriot, a thorough Washingtonian 
in politics, a Federalist of the old school, — what would 
now probably be called an aristocrat, unless he may 
be considered to have somewhat qualified this stig- 
matic appellation, by undeviating devotion to the 
cause of the country, by the most generous efforts 
and sacrifices in its behalf, by the faithful perform- 
ance of every private duty, and the clear and able 
discharge of many high public trusts ; in fact, by 
entire integrity and purity of life, and unsurpassed 
courtesy of manners ; securing to himself universal 
respect while he lived, and the common lamentation 
when he died, and enabling him to leave to his chil- 
dren a name better than rubies, and which had its 
undoubted influence in the formation of their charac- 
ters, and in the tenor of their histories and fortunes. 

At the period of Judge Jackson's birth, Newbury- 
port, the place of his father's origin and residence 
then, and long afterwards, and during his most pros- 
perous days, stood amongst the first, if it was not the 
highest, on the list of the secondary class of towns 
on the American coast. It still retains its natural 
beauty, its ancient mansions, and much else which 



240 HON. CHARLES JACKSON. 

yet constitutes it a place of no common interest. 
But many of the elements of its former distinction 
have long since passed away. In those days, how- 
ever, it was to this town that young men were often 
sent from the capital, and elsewhere, to learn the 
skill, the habits, the discipline and the principles then 
deemed requisite for a merchant ; for there were the 
counting-rooms of men who, besides the evidence of 
their successful enterprise, had secured the public 
confidence, by eminent services performed and marked 
ability displayed in the public cause. Jonathan Jack- 
son, the father of the judge, was a man of education 
and accomplishment, as well as talent, and was a 
valuable member of the Continental Congress in the 
year 1780. His townsman, Tristram Dalton, equally 
eminent as a merchant and a man, was one of the 
two senators first elected to Congress by Massachusetts 
under the constitution ; and Nathaniel Tracy, uncle 
of Judge Jackson, more successful than either, in the 
acquisitions of maritime enterprise, is reputed to 
have supplied government with no less than one hun- 
dred and sixty-seven thousand dollars, during the 
revolutionary war — out of a fortune so ample, as to 
make the question of repayment of such a sum a 
matter of indifference, and which was really sacrificed 
by a private gentleman to the general necessity. 
Men like these, with their compeers, of more or less 
pretension and success, would naturally give a very 



HON. CHARLES JACKSON. 241 

decided character to a town ;. and many agreeable 
associations, which make its name more than usually 
familiar, are to be traced back to this day of its 
former pride and prosperity. 

At the same period, also, Newburyport was the 
residence of Chief Justice Theophilus Parsons, then 
in the zenith of his preeminent professional reputa- 
tion, — from whose office Rufus King, John Quincy 
Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Benjamin Gorham, and 
a long file of other distinguished persons, — of whom, 
we believe one, Mr. Charles Phelps of Hadley, still 
survives, — entered upon their various useful and bril- 
liant courses of life. There, also, resided the bishop 
of the diocese of Massachusetts, Dr. Bass, and Dr. 
Spring, father of Gardiner Spring of New York, and 
who had been chaplain to Arnold's romantic expedi- 
tion for the conquest of Quebec, which took its de- 
parture from Newburyport, and who was, afterwards, 
a chaplain in the regular army ; and there was Mur- 
ray, the Presbyterian minister, than whom no more 
eloquent, or more learned divine of the times could 
be named, — and there, Whitfield, the wonder of his 
day, who, for many years, had occasionally preached 
to the inhabitants, had died, not long before, and 
found that rest, which its earth still affords to his 
bones. There was also the early instructor of Charles 
Jackson, Nicholas Pike, author of the first American 
arithmetic, of whom one of his biographers says — 
21 



242 HON. CHARLES JACKSON. 

" He was ready in the classics, and seldom took a 
book to hear his pupils recite," — and close by, at 
Durnmer Academy, was " Master Moody," famous 
above all others, and preceptor of many of the lead- 
ing men of the last century. It was the home, also, 
of the excellent and beloved physician of this distin- 
guished circle, and of the poor quite as much, Dr. 
Swett, father of Col. Samuel Swett of this city — and 
whose name, after the lapse of sixty years from his 
decease, still 

Smells sweet and blossoms in the dust, — 

though a physician not often has the opportunity, or 
the fortune, to leave behind him much enduring 
memorial of his fame. There, also, was Judge Brad- 
bury, of the Supreme Court, with whom Parsons 
studied, and Dudley Atkins Tyng, collector of the 
port under Washington, and afterwards reporter of 
the early volumes of the Massachusetts decisions, and 
connected with some of the principal families of Mas- 
sachusetts ; and there were born, a few years before, 
John Lowell, son of the famous Judge John Lowell, 
and in the same year with Charles Jackson, Francis 
C. Lowell, brother of John, to whom our chief manu- 
facturing city owes its origin and its name. Here, 
also, might be found, during the youth of Jackson, 
a very considerable body of revolutionary worthies, 
amongst them a general officer, distinguished at 



HON. CHARLES JACKSON. 243 

Bunker-hill, and others who attained high rank in the 
military service of the country, in the course of the 
war. No town upon our seaboard entered into that 
long struggle, with readier or higher spirit than 
Newburyport ; and it is easy to conceive how the 
character of its veteran sons, returning from the tri- 
umphant issue of so great a cause, must have tended 
to promote its general elevation and respectability. 
Under such circumstances, therefore, and amidst such 
influences, the subject of this notice was born and 
bred, while there existed in his place of birth an ener- 
gy, an elevation, a style of living, a tone of society 
and a spirit, scarcely to be imagined in one of the 
lesser seaport towns of our own time. We fear that 
we may have been betrayed into a too fond recital of 
departed glories and worthies; but it is not, we be- 
lieve, without its use, and we rejoice that there are 
those yet left, to whom it will prove a subject of 
unfailing interest. 

We have no intention of writing any elaborate 
sketch of the life of Judge Jackson, even were we 
qualified for this duty, by anything more than an 
ordinary familiarity with the distinguishing traits of 
his character. Our only hope has been, to be able to 
pay some not unfitting tribute to the memory of a 
good citizen, and a good man. 

After spending the period of his youth in his native 
town, he entered Cambridge college, at an early age, 



244 HON. CHARLES JACKSON. 

in the same class with the late Dr. Pierce of Brook- 
line, and Charles Coffin of his own town, afterwards 
president of Greenville and Knoxville colleges, in 
Tennessee, and who was his nearest competitor for 
the highest college honors, which Jackson secured. 
He pursued the study of the law with Parsons, at 
Newburyport ; and it was either in regard to the 
period of his legal studies, or to that immediately 
after he entered upon the practice of his profession, 
of which we have heard it said, in his own town, that 
he never looked at a newspaper for three years. Such 
an instance of self-restraint, in a young man, and of 
devotion to his peculiar duties, certainly gave evi- 
dence of qualities, significant of his future eminence 
in a profession, which he had thus made the sole 
mistress of his affections. Accordingly, he won the 
entire approbation of a teacher not easy to please, 
and Parsons is known to have said of him, when he 
entered upon practice — " Of all my pupils, no one 
has left my office better fitted for his profession " — 
[and it is to be remembered that King and Adams 
had preceded him] — "he will prove himself the 
American Blackstone." No man could be better 
qualified than Parsons to form an accurate judgment 
on such a subject, and we have no doubt the predic- 
tion was fully warranted by the elegance, the extent, 
and the soundness of his pupil's acquisitions. If it 
eventually failed in its specific application, the cause 



HON. CHARLES JACKSON. 245 

of such deficiency is to be assigned to enfeebled 
health, rather than to any want of the necessary 
ability and accomplishment. But, notwithstanding 
his devotion to his profession, Mr. Jackson was said 
to be the most popular young man in Newburyport ; 
a distinction owing, no doubt, to the excellence of his 
disposition, to that amenity of manners, which was in 
him a peculiarly observable trait, and to the unspotted 
purity of his life, — as well as to a natural pride in 
the ability and character of a young townsman, — for 
which laudable and patriotic feeling, the citizens of 
his native town have often shown a remarkable pre- 
disposition. 

With such qualities and advantages, it must follow, 
as a matter of course, that Mr. Jackson would rise, 
steadily and rapidly, to the highest position of profes- 
sional eminence. At the bar, he was trusted, beloved 
and honored ; and when, eventually, he received the 
appointment of one of the justices of the Supreme 
Court of the State, upon the decease of Judge Sedg- 
wick, in the year 1813, it was with the approbation of 
all good men. We have always been informed that 
Judge Jackson was what might be styled a model 
judge; that he was distinguished upon the bench, 
which he adorned for only the brief period of about 
ten years, for a marked composure of demeanor, for 
entire precision of legal learning, for extraordinary 
urbanity of manner, for an absolute freedom from 
21* 



246 HON. CHARLES JACKSON. 

passion or prejudice, for a certain, native, high-minded 
independence of opinion, and for an impartiality, 
which amounted, as nearly as possible, to the exem- 
plification of abstract justice ; yet, with a decisive 
inclination, whenever the opportunity occurred, to 
present the equitable view of a case. We need not 
say, therefore, that he exhibited that first qualifica- 
tion of a judge — uprightness — a characteristic, hap- 
pily, of judicial position in Massachusetts, as a general 
rule, and maintaining itself comparatively unsullied, 
even to our own somewhat wavering times. But we 
firmly believe, if the memory of any one of those who 
have passed off the stage, in the bright array of Mas- 
sachusetts judges, were to be appealed to, for a signal 
example of judicial purity, the name of Charles Jack- 
son would be the first to occur. And, since the 
position of a judge upon the earth is not, as it is too 
often considered, that of a mere man of business, 
according to the ordinary estimate of human affairs, 
but he is, in some imperfect sense, the vice-chancellor 
and substitute of infinite wisdom, justice, and power, 
— we know not what more could be said in honor of 
any person, or why any one could wish to bequeath a 
clearer and nobler reputation to his country. 

There are certain opinions of Judge Jackson, in 
the books, which may be referred to as leading and 
most valuable judgments. But any special detail of 
their merits would be out of place here. In conse- 



HON. CHARLES JACKSON. 247 

quence of failing health, he resigned his office in 
1823, and the public thus lost the benefit of those 
services, which he might, perhaps, have rendered 
during some considerable portion, at least, of the 
subsequent thirty years granted to his honored life* 
For the purpose of relaxation and recovery, he soon 
sailed for England ; and as evidence of a reputation 
not confined to home or native country, and of per- 
sonal characteristics well fitted to promote his inter- 
course with intelligent and cultivated society every- 
where, we quote from a letter of a gentleman, writing 
from London to a friend in Newburyport : — " Two of 
your townsmen" (the other was Jacob Perkins) 
" now fill the public eye of England, and are the sub- 
jects of public and private conversation." 

The remaining years of Judge Jackson's life were 
passed in studious retirement, and in agreeable com- 
munion with an extended circle of family and social 
friends. In 1836 he was appointed head of the com- 
mission, under the resolve of the legislature, for the 
revision of the statutes of Massachusetts, of the char- 
acter of which important undertaking we need say 
nothing. Excepting this arduous labor, and the pub- 
lication of his learned treatise on Real Actions, to be 
referred to an earlier date, we are aware of no other 
public service performed by him, while he was, in- 
deed, necessarily and carefully nursing the often 
flickering flame of life. In politics, he clung with 



248 HON. CHARLES JACKSON. 






the ardor and tenacity of settled principle to the 
ancient faith of the old Essex platform, of which his 
master, Parsons, so admirably sketched the outline in 
his famous "Resolutions;" upon the basis of which so 
many of the noblest men, whom this country has ever 
counted amongst its jewels, have so often uttered 
words of warning and wisdom and encouragement 
and patriotism, in the roughest times the country has 
ever seen. In religion, he was, as we have good 
reason to believe, what was said with equal truth of 
John Selden, " a resolved serious Christian ; " and, 
unlike too many professional men, he found no ex- 
cuse for the neglect of its duties, in the engrossing 
demands of ordinary cares and labors. Indeed, his 
life was one long routine of fulfilled duties, which a 
natural sense of rectitude made pleasures. We pre- 
sume he had faults, for he was human ; if so, they 
were not public, and we know not what they were. 
He was a gentleman, by nature, sentiment, and cul- 
tivation. During his whole life, he was beloved, 
esteemed and respected. He dies, without a blot 
upon his memory, and has thus nobly fulfilled the 
only real purposes of human existence. 



MR. CHOATE'S LECTURE 



ROGERS AND HIS TIMES. 



We imagine, it will be found not a very easy matter 
to present even an intelligible sketch of Mr. Clioate's 
great lecture, delivered on Monday evening. No 
description could really furnish any adequate idea of 
such a performance. As well might mortal painter 
endeavor to catch upon canvas those hues of heaven, 
which kindle into beauty and vanish in the trail of the 
descending day. And just as no imagination could 
recall those shapes of capricious loveliness, momenta- 
rily shifting and finally melting into that unfathom- 
able ocean of golden light ; so those who have subse- 
quently attempted to report this great orator (for 
assuredly no gray goose-quill, detached from its parent 
wing, could be quite fleet enough to follow him, at the 
moment) have thus found the vividness, the glow, 
the rapidity, and the sparkle of his utterly unexpected 
diagonalisms, quite beyond the reach of their ability 
to set down. 



250 MR. choate's lecture on 

Whoever has been in the habit of hearing Mr. 
Choate at the bar, or upon occasions of public interest, 
could not fail to be prepared to listen to a discourse, 
instinct with thought, glittering with the fire of 
genius, bubbling and boiling over with the stir and 
riotous action of a teeming and irrepressible fancy. 
Confessedly, it is a very extraordinary thing, that this 
great, laborious, and eminently successful lawyer, who 
occupies a place at the Bar, with no man above, and 
no man very near him ; who so wonderfully exempli- 
fies the axiom, that the part is contained in the whole 
— as it is in complete and not in imperfect works — by 
employing constantly the minutest technical details of 
his profession, with the same unvarying, accurate 
skill, as that with which he grasps its broadest princi- 
ples and wields the entire machinery of its philosophi- 
cal learning ; and who devotes more daily hours to 
the trial and argument of causes, than any three or 
four other persons together ; that such a man, so gift- 
ed, so constituted, and so occupied, should have kept 
his mind thoroughly imbued with the freshness of 
earlier literary and classical acquisitions — should have 
pressed on breast-high with whatever is worthy of 
attention in the literature of to-day, and, on an occa- 
sion like the present, should have been able to charm, 
delight, and, we may say, fascinate an audience as 
intelligent and cultivated as, we presume, is ordinarily 
assembled in this or any other American city. 



ROGERS AND HIS TIMES. 251 

We doubt very much whether such an exhibition 
could be had anywhere else, or from any other source. 
Mr. Choate is a person eminently idiosyncratic. There 
is not, and never was, a speaker exactly like him ; and 
we have never heard anybody speak who, by the gift 
of nature, knew better how to present his strong 
points in their most attractive aspect, or to make his 
weak ones tell more effectively. For the public per- 
formances of Mr. Choate, judged according to the 
strict canons of art, are by no means perfect. A cold 
criticism, subsequently applied, (for we suppose only 
a very cold critic would think of such a criterion, 
under the immediate spell of the orator's fascinating 
eloquence), may undoubtedly detect inequalities, de- 
ficiencies, thought too rapidly conceived, expressions 
now and then inadequately chosen. For our own 
part, we confess our disposition to yield ourselves up 
to the madness of the hour. So far from allowing 
ourselves to be diverted from the general effect of a 
noble performance, like that of Monday evening, by 
any of those occasional irregular but characteristic 
lapses, we should as soon think of quitting the broad 
bosom of the glorious river, which is floating us pros- 
perously on towards happiness and home, for any of 
the side-creeks and false bays, into which the abound- 
ing stream pours some of its superfluous waters. 

It would be equally unfair and useless to undertake 
to judge Mr. Choate by any of the ordinary standards. 



252 MB. choate's lecture on 

In some sense, like Shakspeare's, his genius exceeds 
their bounds, and is not, therefore, amenable to their 
laws. His mind is full to overflowing ; and the infi- 
nite relations of things, in their remoter as well as 
their more intimate coherences, present themselves to 
his imagination and are made subservient to his uses, 
in a manner not always easily to be appreciated by a 
common mind. We dare say there are those, in his 
own profession or out of it, in the same sphere of life, 
who no more understand him, in his loftier flights, 
than they do poetry, in the very ecstasy of its inspira- 
tion. We have seen persons to whom Rachel appeared 
absolutely ugly, or, at least, as exhibiting only the 
icy, outside glitter of a sort of fiendish fascination, in 
the manifestation of her extraordinary powers ; to 
others she seemed almost divinely lovely, and the 
express personification of all those qualities and 
capacities, which occasionally prove how humanity 
may sometimes get wings and soar out of the dead 
level of mere passionless routine and mediocrity. 
This casual comparison is by no means a fanciful 
one ; for there is a good deal of resemblance between 
these two remarkable personages, of different coun- 
tries, callings, and sexes. In his public efforts, Mr. 
Choate unfolds, in no mean degree, those blended 
shades of pathos and humor, which betoken tragic 
power ; and we have often thought, that on the stage 



ROGERS AND HIS TIMES. 253 

he would have shown himself a tragic actor, as incom- 
parable, as he is without a competitor at the Bar. 

There will always be carpers at such characters. 
Through some perversity of nature, men seem often 
to take pleasure in bolstering up weakness and inani- 
ty, and in throwing obstacles in the way of whatever 
asserts genuine claims to superiority. Genius finally 
wins its way to its uppermost heights, only through 
clouds and storms ; or to drop the figure, through envy 
and detraction, faint praise accorded, or in spite of 
assent altogether withheld. It would sometimes seem 
an almost inevitable rule, that men agree, with one 
consent, to praise that which needs it most, and to tear 
away, on the other hand, from great merit whatever 
fairly belongs to it. In the one case, no man's self- 
love is wounded, by commending that which he con- 
ceives to be somewhat beneath his own powers ; in the 
other, every concession which he makes is only an 
acknowledgment of his own individual inferiority. 
Of course, a man like Mr. Choate is beyond all these 
impediments to his progress now, and can look down 
upon them compassionately, unless he prefers, as we 
hope, to look up. But we should like to see those, 
who are most inclined to disparage such a lecture as 
Mr. Choate delivered, try to imitate it, and so soon 
learn that, whether it seem to them great or small, 
in its height or breadth, its golden profusion, and its 
rolling, overflowing, flashing tide of thought and 
22 



254 MR. choate's lecture on 

illustration, it would be found quite beyond the range 
of their most ambitious efforts, as much as some of its 
flights really transcend the capacity of ordinary con- 
ception. In fact, it requires much higher powers, to 
accomplish any great work, however subject to critical 
exception, than to discover and point out those inevi- 
table imperfections, to which all human perform- 
ances are liable. 

We did not set out with any purpose of offering an 
analysis of this remarkable lecture. We have heard 
the observation, that it was not exactly what was to 
be expected of Mr. Choate — which, we suppose, means 
that it did not entirely correspond with certain indefi- 
nite and extravagant expectations, which no man 
ever did or ever can satisfy. We thought it quite 
equal to his best efforts, and if not, yet in certain 
respects superior to what other men could do. It 
exhibited all those points, which are sometimes ac- 
counted amongst the faults of this eminent orator, and 
it glittered with the fervor and showering fire of 
genius — flinging out a word, here and there, which 
sparkled in its place like some diamond of incompa- 
rable lustre — drawing its illustrations out of clefts 
and caverns at the height of tho rocks, inaccessible 
to the sweep of ordinary thought, or from depths of 
the sea, which only the imagination of the hardiest 
diver would venture to explore. 

We have also heard this performance characterized 






ROGERS AND HIS TIMES. 255 

as discursive. To our apprehension, it possessed a 
certain higher order and propriety of parts, suffi- 
ciently luminous in itself, and amply consistent with 
its subject. Other critics have suggested, we are told,, 
that some of its channels of thought indicated the 
results of Mr. Choate's reading, amongst the great 
writers of our own and of other times. We have 
little doubt, without making any reference for the 
sake of comparison, that the beautiful tribute to old 
age, with which Mr. Choate ushered in his address, 
may have much coincidence of sentiment with that 
noblest essay of Cicero, " De Senectute." We should 
judge that Mr. Choate had been a reader of Lord 
Bacon. We make no question his mind has been 
more or less imbued with the vital sentiment of cer- 
tain works, showing how a new style and spirit of 
modern letters sprang out of the embers of the French 
Revolution, like the young and vigorous growth cover- 
ing with fresh luxuriance the ashes of the forest, 
swept over by consuming fire ; it was quite evident 
he is an admirer of the fathers and leaders of 
English literature, — the ornaments, the honors, and 
lights of the world, upon whose writings the mind 
feeds and grows, and to which it is indebted for fur- 
nishing it with new thought, or recalling the old which 
had been forgotten. 

He who has accustomed himself to habitual asso- 
ciation with such writers no more loses his own indi- 



256 MR. choate's lecture on 



viduality, than the flower forfeits its native form an 
beauty, though it developes a lovelier hue and grace, 
when it is transplanted into a more congenial soil. 
By consequence of such studies, instead of immature 
thought, crude and feeble conception and elaborate 
shallowness, or a mere vacant and meretriciously bediz- 
ened essay, like a hollow pillar of sapless wood, encir- 
cled with artificial flowers, — we have just such a fresh, 
thoughtful, suggestive, glowing lecture, — the more 
liable to be misappreciated, since it was certainly very 
far out of the common course, — as that with which 
Mr. Choate enchanted an expressively silent audience, 
for an hour and a half, on Monday evening. It was 
gratifying beyond measure to listen to those philo- 
sophical deductions of principles and results, so broad, 
sound, generous and noble, so fitted to advance truth, 
to maintain honor, to dignify manhood, to cheer and 
sweeten life. Even if we might not assent to all its 
critical exemplifications and instances, in our opinion 
the lecture was such a lofty and generous intellectual 
effort, that we wish we knew where to look, either 
now or for the future, in order to justify our hope of 
other such literary performances. 

If we were to select, after that most happy and 
self-deprecatory opening, the portion of the lecture 
which seemed to us more than usually admirable, it 
was the reply to Carlyle's futile blow at Walter Scott. 
There could remain no doubt on the mind of whoever 



jid 



ROGERS AND HIS TIMES. 257 

was present, that this splendid and carefully wrought 
passage went thrilling to the hearts of the assembly, 
and filled and satisfied their understandings with an 
argument at once eloquent, original, and conclusive. 
For our own part, we can only express our wish, that 
an intellectual exercise of such extraordinary power 
and brilliancy, and calculated to produce so salutary 
an influence, might be in the hands, as well as in the 
ears and mouths of the public ; and we sincerely trust 
that Mr. Choate may be induced to yield his reluc- 
tance, for this once, and put forth in print a perform- 
ance, which we cannot help feeling confident would 
tend very much to the benefit of his permanent repu- 
tation. 

22* 



A SHAKESPEARIAN RESEARCH. 



That passage of Shakespeare, which has given 
occasion to numerous annotations and disquisitions, 
perhaps the most unprofitably long drawn out, is the 
one quoted below. It occurs in that passionate mon- 
ologue of Juliet, uttered while she is impatiently 
awaiting the approach of night, to cover her con- 
certed interview with Romeo : — 

Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds, 
Towards Phoebus' mansion ; such a wagoner 
As Phaeton would whip you to the West, 
And bring in cloudy night immediately : 
Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night ! 
That runaway's eyes may winh 3 and llomco 
Leap to these arms, untalked of and unseen, &c. 

Romeo and Juliet, Act II., Sc. 2. 

In the quarto and folio editions, the word ruv- 
awaifs is written in the ancient fashion, " run- 
awayes," and the point at issue has been to ascertain 
whom Shakespeare meant to indicate by this appella- 
tion. To exhibit the full variety of discussion, in 
which Shakespeare's editors and annotators have in- 
dulged upon this subject, would be to display quite a 
voluminous mass of laborious, if not ingenious criti- 
cism, and the course of opinion revealed affords a very 



A SHAKESPEARIAN RESEARCH. 259 

curious specimen of hopeless conjecture. Whoever 
desires to consult the older authorities, on this point, 
will find them stated at length, in the Variorum 
edition of the poet's works"; while a very ample, elab- 
orate and able article on the subject, containing ref- 
erences to the more modern suggestions of critics, in 
England and this country, may be seen in the " Shake- 
speare's Scholar " of Mr. Richard Grant White, pp. 
372, 38T. 

Mr. Singer, in his note on this passage, says that 
" Dr. Warburton thought that the runaway in ques- 
tion was the sun; but Mr. Heath has most completely 
disproved this opinion," — on the ground, that Juliet 
could not consistently complain of the tardiness of 
the sun, or Phoebus, to whom she had just before 
assigned " fiery-footed steeds." Douce, it seems, in- 
sists that Juliet applies the term to herself, as a 
runaway from her duty to her parents. Monck 
Mason proposed Renomy's, that is Renome's ; Zach- 
ary Jackson, unawares, which was adopted by Collier 
and Knight ; Dyce suggested rude day's, and, being- 
dissatisfied himself with this explanation, subsequently 
wanders off amongst " roving eyes ; " which he likes 
not much better. Steevens, with some touch of poet- 
ical instinct, clings manfully to runaway's, though 
evidently not understanding the meaning of the al- 
lusion. Mr. Halpin agrees with this, and thinks 
the phrase applies to Cupid, " Venus' Runaway," so 



260 A SHAKESPEARIAN RESEARCH. 



styled by Moschus, and, after him, by Ben Johnson ; 
which theory, at least, conveys an intelligible and 
poetical meaning, with this objection, however, that 
Cupid's eyes, on the occasion, ought to be open, 
rather than shut. It appears, however, that Mr. 
Heath, long ago, conjectured the word to be a mis- 
print for " Rumour's." With this Mr. Singer now 
substantially coincides, substituting, however, ru- 
mour er 's ; and Mr. White, who had originally believed 
that this " incomprehensible runaway " was an error, 
which would " probably remain forever uncorrected," 
at last falls in with the conjecture of Mr. Heath, and 
asks if there " can be any doubt, that runioure's eyes 
were the words written by the poet ? " 

Now, in order to explain this passage, if possible, 
let us resolve it into different language, conveying 
precisely the same ideas throughout; and it may 
stand thus, — 

Make your best haste, oh swift steeds of the sun, to 
be stalled, for the night, at the mansion of Phoebus, 
in the West. If such a wagoner, as Phaeton once of 
old was, only had the reins, he would put you to 
your mettle, and, under the whip, would you dash 
through heaven to your place of rest, and bring on 
night at once. Now, let.it be so, love-performing 
night ! Thus, now, as then, quickly spread thy close 
curtain, — that runaway's eyes may wink ! Such be 
the speed ! Let this fiery charioteer — this runaway 



.. 



A SHAKESPEARIAN RESEARCH. 261 

wagoner, — this Phaeton, runaway with by the steeds 
of the sun — perform the same feat now, (success- 
fully) — forthwith let him wink — close his eyes — 
sleep — be it speedily night, — that, under its shadow, 
Romeo may — 

Leap to these arms, untalked of and unseen ! 

This I conceive to have been the course of thought 
in Shakespeare's mind. The metonomy, in the last 
line, constitutes no objection to this explanation. 
" Unseen " would be the ordinary consequence of 
darkness ; and so, therefore, would be " untalked 
of ; " and, although observation, in the natural course 
of events, would precede discussion, — yet, for poetical 
purposes, surely, nothing can be more common than 
such a reversal of the actual " order of their going." 
The word " wink,' 9 of course, is used for sleep, in the 
common sense in which we employ it, e. g., I have 
not slept a wink. 

And, although I do not conceive, in regard to this, 
or any other passage of Shakespeare, that it is essen- 
tial for us to make it, as precisely and consecutively 
consequential, as the propositions of a syllogism, — 
yet, on the other hand, if it be objected that, whether 
Phoebus or Phaeton drive the chariot of heaven through 
its stages, it is the absence of the sun which causes 
night, — and that, therefore, in the order of nature, it is 
not logically consecutive, to supplicate Night to spread 



262 A SHAKESPEARIAN RESEARCH. 






her curtain, in order that the eyes of him may wink, 
whose metaphorical retirement to repose is simulta- 
neous and coincident with the action prayed for, and 
who is, of himself, the potential cause of this very 
effect of darkness, — yet, figuratively speaking, and in 
reference to the personification of the sun, as Phoe- 
bus or Phaeton, it was sufficiently so, and indeed it 
was strictly accurate for the poet so to form the im- 
agination of it, and so to beseech Night to draw her 
curtain over the face of things, after heaven's chariot- 
eer had completed his course and stabled his steeds ; 
and especially as, in this instance, after his some- 
what break-neck drive, he might not unreasonably be 
thought in need of his natural rest. 

Although, therefore, in conceiving of the ordinary 
succession of day and night, regarded as natural 
events, we are conscious that, only upon the winking 
of " day's garish eye," does night ensue, — and the 
obvious idea, in this aspect of the case, is, not that 
the ivinking in question follows upon, but accom- 
panies the coming on of night, — yet, otherwise, when 
we think of the sun as Phoebus, or, as in this in- 
stance, as Phaeton, driving his car to the West, as 
his goal, — which presents the image of " civil-suited 
Night " coming forward to spread her close curtain 
behind him, only when the wagoner has arrived at 
his wonted mansion and has disappeared within. 

The observation of Mr. Heath, therefore, on Bishop 



A SHAKESPEARIAN RESEARCH. 263 

Warburton's note, though literally correct, is not 
poetically so. In fact, Juliet only hints at greater 
speed, rather than complains of the tardiness of the 
sun. She addresses his coursers as fiery-footed 
steeds ; but, rapid as is the movement of these flam- 
ing horses, still she would be glad to hasten their 
speed. The regular flight of time, to be sure, is not 
fast enough for her! In this consists the incom- 
pleteness and, therefore, the fallacy of Warburton's 
theory. However swiftly the sun, — Phoebus him- 
self, — fulfils his ordinary course, under his govern- 
ment the procession of the hours is uniform and 
orderly ; and the pace, though rapid, subject to 
strict guidance and control. In no proper sense, 
consequently, can the sun itself be denominated a 
" runaway ; " and ergo, as our friend Launcelot 
Gobbo would say, Shakespeare did not thus offend 
against propriety and the nature of things. But, 
upon the fancy of Juliet, yearning as she was for 
the moment when she was to be with her lover, 
flashed the idea of that irregular, meteoric race 
through the skies, which once called for the interven- 
tion of Jove's dread thunderbolt, to stay its progress ; 
and if the unskilful charioteer, on this occasion, were 
not a " runaway," and, par excellence, the runaway, 
in this special connection, when we are speaking of 
the flight of time, and seeking to accelerate its prog- 
ress, we know not where Shakespeare could have 



264 A SHAKESPEARIAN RESEARCH. 

looked, for so fit an example ; especially when this 
runaway sally is the very subject of his fancy ; and 
its chief actor is the very agent Juliet instances, and, 
we may presume, is wishing for, to hasten matters to 
the conclusion she so desired. For, in her fantastical 
imagination, at the hint of the name, Phoebus be- 
comes Phaeton ; this idea fills her mind, and she 
thus pursues the chain of thought. 

The truth is, Warburton is the only one of Shake- 
speare's commentators, who seems to have had a 
glimpse of the poet's idea in this passage. But, 
though it is strange, that what seems so obvious, 
should not have occurred to a scholar like himself, 
apparently his mind was not of a sufficiently poetical 
texture fully to apprehend the association of thought 
in the text. Most other theories seem little better 
than ingenious trifling. 

The whole speech, in fact, is characteristically girl- 
ish, love-sick, extravagant, erratic, Phaetonic. We 
must not here, then, require Shakespeare to produce, 
in detail, every minute link in the chain of his earth- 
embracing and heaven-embracing associations, in 
order to enable inconsiderate eyes to follow the flight 
of his imagination ; and he, we will suppose, im- 
agined us capable of catching some flashes of his 
meaning, when his fancy touched into being those 
seemingly wayward and intricate, but still ever inter- 
mingling and harmonious, shapes of light. 



